Alex Penson, Waltham Forest Socialist Party
The Defend Our Juries campaign (defendourjuries.org) organised silent protests at 40 crown courts on 4 December, reminding juries of their constitutional right to acquit as a matter of conscience.
Earlier this year Trudi Warner, a retired social worker from Waltham Forest, silently held up a sign reminding a jury of its constitutional right to acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience. She was arrested and sent to the Old Bailey, where a version of the same message was displayed. The Attorney General has now said that she will be prosecuted for contempt of court with a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment.
The last few years have seen a crackdown on protest as well as on the right to strike, often in the name of ‘public order’ and preventing ‘disruption’. If the public were as deeply ‘anti-protest’ as the government and certain sections of the media would have you believe, then being tried by twelve randomly selected members of the public, would be very bad news for protesters.
Acquit
In fact, juries have recently acquitted people involved in many protest cases, including those that toppled the statue of a slave trader, disrupted deportations to Jamaica, and targeted Shell HQ, arms manufacturer Elbit which makes drones used to kill Palestinians, and most recently the headquarters of HSBC.
In response, the state is beginning to turn jury trials increasingly into show trials in these political cases, for example, by ruling out defences based on human rights or directing defendants that they cannot explain their motivations to the jury. In a number of cases like this, people have been sent to prison just for using the words ‘fuel poverty’ or ‘climate change’ in court to explain their actions.
Defendants have also been banned from reminding a jury of its constitutional right to acquit as a matter of conscience. Others have been arrested for holding signs stating this principle. A judge in a recent protest case threatened to decide the case alone without the jury under seldom-used powers.
