News on U.S. government agencies, U.S. politics, companies doing business with U.S. federal government. Read U.S. national and local news. This site is not affiliated with United States Government.
(USGovernment-News.Com, May 19, 2013 ) Dublin 2, Ireland -- In Ireland’s 1927 Juries Act, the law was established that only white men aged 21 or over who owned land could participate in a jury. IT wasn’t until 1971 that women were allowed on the jury. Now, the law is being looked at again because certain legislators don’t believe they properly reflect the whole of the community to provide a “judgement of peers”.
Dozens of New Proposals
Currently, only Irish-born citizens are allowed to hold a place on jury. Because of this, many foreign born citizens are not allowed to do their part of their community to bring justice to crime. Now to change the laws, legislators are proposing 56 different changes to the original Jury Act, including giving non-citizens the ability to sit on a jury trial in order to strengthen the judicial system. Both England and Wales allow registered non-citizens to participate in juries, so Ireland would not be the first country to do so. Opponents of the new act say that language is a huge barrier for jury duty. Even if a person may speak the same language, specific law language may propose a problem to understanding how the Irish judicial system works.
An Ineffective way to Represent a Population
Under the current law, business owners and public workers are not required to attend jury, and authors of the proposal argue that it is hard to completely randomize a jury as it is suppose to be, if these people are not included in jury selection.
In addition, lawmakers want a court to appoint three additional jurors in the event that someone can be available for jury duty or becomes dismissed in the middle of a case.
If these new laws pass, access to the jury lists will be more restricted and, according to the proposal authors, will help clear up any misconception about the meaning of a citizen.
Solicitors Dublin Services (http://www.solicitorsdublinservices.com) offers legal help and advice for a variety of situations, ranging from divorce and family to business and criminal. Because of the high success rate of Solicitors Dublin Services, clients continue to come back for all of their legal needs.
We are pleased to offer you this exciting, new, and entirely free professional resource. Visit our Free Industry resource center today to browse our selection of 600+ complimentary Industry magazines, white papers, webinars, podcasts, and more. Get popular titles including:
