Can't Read or Write English? Come and Serve as a Juror!

Electors who cannot read English (or Welsh or English in Wales) are being invited to serve as jurors in criminal trials.
Officials have said that an inability to understand the written language is no bar to serving on a jury.

There are even plans afoot that will allow those who cannot even understand English to be asked to sit as a jury member!

The opening of juries to people with limited English was confirmed by the new agency set up to run the court system, HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

There are 200,000 people a year called for jury service.

The letters sent to summon them are now printed in seven languages extra to English so as to ‘encourage’ non-English speakers to feel that they can take part.

Of course, we all know that the jury system is founded on the basis that we are all tried by our peers.

If our peers cannot speak English, or read or write it properly, how can we have confidence that there will be justice delivered?

The Courts and Tribunals Service said multi-language summonses were introduced two years ago in order to allow those who do not read English to avoid the risk of being prosecuted for failing to reply.

The languages on the addendum are Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati, Polish, Cantonese and Arabic.

How long will it be before we will have to pay for interpreters and translators for these jurors?

MrDoodles wrote:Electors who cannot read English (or Welsh or English in Wales) are being invited to serve as jurors in criminal trials.
Officials have said that an inability to understand the written language is no bar to serving on a jury.

There are even plans afoot that will allow those who cannot even understand English to be asked to sit as a jury member!

The opening of juries to people with limited English was confirmed by the new agency set up to run the court system, HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

There are 200,000 people a year called for jury service.

The letters sent to summon them are now printed in seven languages extra to English so as to ‘encourage’ non-English speakers to feel that they can take part.

Of course, we all know that the jury system is founded on the basis that we are all tried by our peers.

If our peers cannot speak English, or read or write it properly, how can we have confidence that there will be justice delivered?

The Courts and Tribunals Service said multi-language summonses were introduced two years ago in order to allow those who do not read English to avoid the risk of being prosecuted for failing to reply.

The languages on the addendum are Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati, Polish, Cantonese and Arabic.

How long will it be before we will have to pay for interpreters and translators for these jurors?

In my opinion anyone serving on a Jury should be able to fully understand the English language. There is too great a potential for a miscarriage of justice or a criminal not being convicted when he/she should be. For information to be misinterpreted or taken out of context.

Let's face it, it's pretty easy to misunderstand each other, even when we do speak the same language