I am pleased to be one of the signatories to the campaign launched today for 'public juries' intended to help take power away from the tiny elite who control it in the UK.
The campaign is explained in the Guardian, and laid our in detail as follows:
Something is unraveling before our eyes. From bankers to media-barons, private interests have bankrupted and corrupted the public realm. Power, for so long hidden in the pockets of a cosy elite, has been exposed. Those who wield it have been found wanting — in scruples, in morals and in decency.
Things are now in flux, but will not stay so for long.
Without decisive and sustained action, power will fall back into the hands of a small elite who have their own, and not the public's interest at heart.
They want to prevent public revulsion turning into public action. But, it's time for real change. Things cannot be allowed to turn back to business as usual.
Britain can no longer be just the plaything of a handful of powerful, remote interest groups treating the wider public with contempt.
The current press and political scandal is not an isolated event.
It's the third crisis in quick succession.
First, the bankers and their bonuses, then some politicians and their expenses and now there is the press, profiting from peoples' pain, grief and private lives.
These crises share common origins.
Left to their own devices politicians, bankers and media moguls could not regulate themselves.
They share a common culture in which greed is good, everyone takes their turn at the trough, and private interest takes precedence over the public good. They have protected each other and left the British people with a financial and political crisis.
They do what they can get away with, not seeming to care for the common life of our country. And, they are scared of only one thing. Us. The public. If public organisations and citizens are vigilant, that elite won't be able to get away with it again. With the right checks and balances we can put the public interest back into the heart of the system.
Only we, the public, can hold power truly to account by testing whether what happens is in the public interest.
To work out how to do it we call for a new Public Jury for the British public interest to propose reforms of banking, politics, media and the police.
The Jury would be made up of 1,000 citizens drawn as a random sample of the electorate. It will be a jury of our peers. We do not need yet another inquiry in which one elite asks another elite to tell them what cannot be done.
The Jury will be funded out of the public purse, with a paid secretariat with the resources to commission research and call witnesses.
It will have the power to require attendance where persons will be asked by the public to explain themselves.
Reporting within a year of its launch the convention will study and report on:
- Media ownership and the public interest
- The role of the financial sector in the crash
- MP selections and accountability
- Policing and public interest
- How to apply a 'public interest first' test more generally to British political and corporate life
Signed by:
Greg Dyke
Henry Porter
Lord Stewart Wood
Lord Smith of Clifton
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
John Kampfner, Index on Censorship
Philip Pullman, author
Gordon Roddick
Caroline Lucas MP, leader of the Green Party
Professor Zygmunt Bauman, Leeds University
Professor Francesca Klug OBE
Professor David Marquand, Mansfield College, Oxford University
Professor Kate Pickett, University of York
Professor Richard Grayson, University of London
Ann Pettifor, Prime Economics
Peter Facey, Unlock Democracy
Deborah Doane, World Development Movement
John Christenson, Tax Justice Network
Richard Murphy, Tax Research LLP
Charlie McConnell, Schumacher College
Professor Tim Jackson, University of Surrey
Guy Shrubsole, Public Interest Research Centre
Richard Hawkins, Public Interest Research Centre
Alan Mac Dougall, PIRC
Neal Lawson, Compass
Martin McIvor, Renewal
Gavin Hayes, Compass
Andrew Simms, nef fellow
Will Straw, founder of Left Foot Forward
Clifford Singer, Other Taxpayers Alliance
Dave Prentis, General Secretary, Unison
Heather Wakefield, Unison
Polly Toynbee, The Guardian
Madeleine Bunting, The Guardian
Laurie Penny, journalist
Heather Savigny, UEA
Professor Judith Marquand, Wolfson College, Oxford University
Professor Alan Finlayson, University of Swansea
Professor Jonathan Rutherford, Middlesex University
Professor Danny Dorling, University of Sheffield
Professor George Irvin, University of London, SOAS
Professor Prem Sikka, University of Essex
Professor Richard Wilkinson, Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology
Professor Stefano Harney, QMUL
Professor Peter Case, Bristol Business School
Owen Jones, author of Chavs
Howard Reed, Landman Economics
Stewart Lansley, research fellow, University of Bristol
Professor John Weeks, SOAS
Jenny Jones AM, Green Party
Jeremy Leggett, founder and CEO, Solar Century
Tamasin Cave, Spinwatch
Professor Victoria Chick, UCL
Ruth Potts, The Great Transition, New Economics Foundation
Stewart Wallis, executive director, New Economics Foundation
Rajesh Makwana, director, Share The World's Resources
To support the call for a People's Jury for the British Public Interest go towww.compassonline.org.uk
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Interesting idea, although have you seen the composition of most criminal trial juries? If you truly draw the members from a similar random sample process then I’m not sure you are going to get a group of people truly able to grapple with some of the concepts – one of the reasons for jury less complex fraud trials.
Sorry Steve, completely disagree. Our representatives in parliament in most cases don’t have a clue about any of the practicalities of the laws they pass, they rely on independent experts (such as the Government Economics Service) for advice. I don’t see why members of this Panel would be incapable of receiving the same advice.
Basically, this campaign says that the Houses or Parliament have failed and are not protecting the people against this “feral elite”. Is it right to create another group of people chosen randomly to remedy this failing? I don’t have any confidence that the group of randoms is not capable of being suborned in the same way that parliament has been. How will the group organise itself? How will it decide on its judgments? Will it elect a speaker from its own ranks? How will it decide who to call as witnesses? It is quite possible that 500 EDL supporters and 500 derivatives traders might be chosen. Have you never read the opinion polls by MORI or YouGov? Would you want these matters decided by these sample from the population?
Bob, you raise some excellent points.
The other 400lb gorilla in the room is whether or not service on this jury would be compulsory if your name is pulled out of the hat.
I’d wouldn’t think anybody could or should be forced to serve against his or her will.
So if it isn’t compulsory, what sort of people would put themselves forward – who have the time and desire to do so. My guess: the same types who now put themselves up for election. Just more politicians in other words. Not really a random sample.
Is there any reason to think these additional randomly selected politicians would do any better than elected politicians? In terms of competence, understanding the ‘public benefit’, being untainted from connections etc? If they are in a better position to do so (it would be an interesting experiment but I am skeptical), then maybe we should abandon elections and just have all MPs & local councillors drawn from a hat of willing candidates. Would the fact they never get a 2nd term (except by fluke) affect their behaviour?
Well, what do you suggest we do instead?
Cynicism is easy: try being positive
Since any randomly selected jury would be subject to a) random selection and (possibly) b) jury selection (which would weed out anybody with vested interests or pre-existing biases w.r.t. the legislative case for which the jury was selected) the subordination of any such jury to outside forces would be highly unlikely. There’s a reason why our ancestors enshrined juries within the judicial process (they eliminate emotive bias) and to be entirely honest I’m amazed it was never similarly enshrined within the political process (juries could just as easily eliminate political bias). Though perhaps we should seek to differentiate these juries from their judicial cousins; we could call them puries.
As for organisation, there will of course be a professionalised body responsible for organising jury selection and organising the cases they will hear. Just as is the case for judicial juries (which are not self organised).
Possible, but highly unlikely! There’s also the possibility of including some form of jury selection process which would eliminate individuals of morally ambiguous character and/or whom have vested interests w.r.t. the role the jury has been selected for (I expect that a jury will be selected to serve on a particular case, rather than to serve for a fixed period)
Presently, service on a [judicial] jury is compulsory unless you can provide reasonable grounds for exemption (e.g. medical grounds). I don’t see a problem here. We as citizens already have an obligation to serve as jurors in criminal courts. If we want to curtail the power of lobbyists and elite/professionalised politicians, we have to bite the bullet.
The random selection of jurors prevents permanent links (connections) developing between sitting jurors (who’ll have a very limited tenure I would imagine). What’s more, a randomly selected subset of the public is far better placed to understand the ‘public benefit’ being as it is a representative subset of the public (it is statistically unlikely that a random selection process will yield a grossly unrepresentative cross-section of the populace).
As far as competence is concerned, such a jury would be tasked with assessing information/legislation rather than formulating and overseeing it from a professional/learned perspective (which are the duties of the Houses of Commons and Lords respectively). One doesn’t need to be a genius to form an informed opinion on legislation. At present, our elected oligarchs can do pretty much whatever they want between elections (and the extent to which they are punished at the polls is minimal, given the abysmal state of politics in this country; tweedle dum or tweedle dee?). The introduction of a third, jury based, chamber to our legislative process would serve as a check on this obscenely undemocratic privilege, and create a permanent presence for the public within the legislative process.
Thanks
Really useful contribution to debate
Appreciated
“Well, what do you suggest we do instead?
Cynicism is easy: try being positive”
Are you suggesting you only endorsed this idea because it is a case of ‘something is better than nothing’?
Did it really not occur to you that we will just be introducing another layer of politicians who, instead of being elected, will just be drawn out of a hat? OK they won’t have election expenses to worry about. But won’t there be an incentive to ‘fill yer boots’ on this jury on the understanding this is your one shot.
And if you put yourself forward, how do you know your name really is in that hat, and the exercise has not been rigged? We will never know for sure that a given exercise has not been tainted.
No I endorsed this because it was, I thought, a good idea
You still seem bereft of them – indeed your comments suggest cynicism is all you can muster
These are not elected politicians, but rather randomly selected jurors from a pool of ~40,000,000 adults. The selection process itself, can be designed to eliminate any pre-existing conflicts of interest and/or jurors of an ethically dubious character.
The issue we have with our current system of governance is that we have two classes of legislator; our MPs who have steadily became professionalised (and are thus embedded within the political process throughout most of their careers) and our Lords who are appointed either on merit or as a ‘reward’ for long service to politics. Both class of legislator typically hold on to power in the long term (5+ years minimum) and hold significant influence over the legislative process as a whole (some more than others).
Any jury selected would, I hope, be selected to sit in judgement on a specific case (as with traditional juries) and not to serve as long term jurors with fixed terms. There are certainly issues of jury tampering (which is a criminal offence I believe), but this is true of traditional juries as well, and systems could be put in place to handle such things. In any case, there is a significant difference between jury tampering and engrained corruption in the form of persistent connections (old boys network, party political funding, etc…) with persistent inhabitants of the legislative process who have broader powers and are thus a much more appealing target to cultivate long term relationships (of political convenience) with.
As to your remarks regarding filling your boots, I can only assume you are referring to the potential for jury tampering (via, for example, bribery) which is of course a criminal offence and something which effects traditional juries anyway. The potential for such tampering needs to be considered (as I said above) and planned for, but it is nothing compared to the corrupt culture of parliament (bribing even a majority of 1,000 jurors would be costly and difficult to keep quite; establishing contacts within the upper echelon of parliament and allowing the party policy and the whips to do the rest is comparatively easy). If however you are referring to expenses claims, the current set up for jurors is overwhelmingly stingy and any such jury could easily be subject to the same checks as MPs currently undergo (or we could simply pay the jurors a decent wage for performing a vital public service, as I believe we should do for criminal jurors).
…and I’m afraid I have to agree with Richard. Your cynicism is ridiculously non-constructive! How can you be certain that your ballot is actually counted at election time? Sometimes you just have to have a little faith in civil/public servants (just a little mind).
Besides, I think we’d notice a jury composed entirely of David Cameron clones. 😉
Sorry Lee, I just can’t see this thing being compulsory in the same way that jury service for a criminal trial is compulsory (bar the extenuating circumstances you mention).
The time commitment, travel and effort required would (if this idea is to have any legs) be significantly higher and there is no way we can force anyone to take themselves away from their other commitments, nor would it be desirable to do so.
So we really will be back where we start from – more ‘politicians’, but this time, unelected ones.
“The selection process itself, can be designed to eliminate any pre-existing conflicts of interest and/or jurors of an ethically dubious character.”
No, if it is to be random, the last thing you want is to give anybody the power to decide who is ‘ethically dubious’. If it is random, then as long as you’re on the electoral roll and are not in jail, you’d have to be eligible.
As for conflicts, should someone who actually works in a bank or holds bank shares or a union which represents bank employees be excluded from this jury (in the same way a conflicted juror would be excluded in a criminal trial)? Why should they be denied a say on something that affects them?
The letter above wants a ‘trial’ about pet subjects for the left – banking, politics (a pet subject for the left only when they are not in power), media and the police. How will the right get a chance for a ‘trial’ on issues that interest them: unions, the BBC and the EU? Just getting your topic on the agenda gives scope for plenty of argy bargy before we have even started.
Such practicalities are negotiable (I would imagine), as the proposal hasn’t gone into explicit detail re. jury selection. It’s possible for example that the jury selection process could select a surplus (say 1500 people) and allow people to opt-out. This would be better than the opt-in (of aspiring politicians) that you describe previously.
A lot of people feel the same way about jury service itself (my Father, who was selected for jury service last year, included), but it remains a civic duty of all of us, and a necessary one if we want a free and fair judicial system. As I say, I have no objection to people being allowed to opt-out (even on a whim, i.e. without the need of extenuating circumstances), but I would imagine that many who were selected would be more than happy to play such an influential role (especially if they are properly remunerated for it, and the employers are bared from penalising them, etc…).
The key difference being, and I really can’t stress this enough, that these individuals are randomly selected from the public and serve a limited term. The issue we have with our politicians is not that they are interested in politics (I’m interested in politics, and if I thought I could get anywhere without having to sell myself down the river to political parties and alike, I would enter politics in a second) but rather that they form part of a wider culture (aided by their professionalised status and their party political connections) which is fraught with connections with big business and lobbyists.
In an idea world we could tackle this by publicly funding election campaigns, abolishing the role of the party whip (at least in forcing MPs to vote the party line) and forcing all lobbyists to lobby in public (we could televise everything on BBC parliament). This could partially mitigate some of the less desirable aspects of a professionalised political class. However, this is a bit of an aside, and in any case a randomly selected sample of the general population (even if it only includes the politically inclined) will NOT yield the same problems of political culture as presently exists in the House of Commons.
I’m not sure if you are aware of the way in which juries are presently selected, but there random selection is succeeded by an interview stage wherein any bias/vested interests are determined and if they seen as detrimental to the role of the jury (i.e. the juror knows the defendant, or is racist w.r.t. the race of the defendant) that juror is deselected.
I can certainly understand your point regarding de-selection on the grounds of ‘ethical dubious character’. In this case I was thinking of lunatics (like Gert Wilder) who might not be conducive to a constructive atmosphere. However the introduction of an objective standard seems impossible, and the introduction of a subjective standard would be somewhat worrying and could provide a means of jury tampering in and of itself.
Of course they should be denied a direct say. Having such close ties to an industry which would essentially be on trial would make it nyon impossible for them to be unbiased and/or objective. If there are vested interests (such as share ownership and/or employment) such a juror would be inclined to support any motions that sured up the share price and secured their industry.
Of course such individuals could contribute by giving evidence (under oath) to the jury, assuming that they have the expertise to do so (and the jury calls them). But the idea that such individuals would get a vote (on the jury) on matters which so directly effect them is as abhorrent as allowing the families of murder victims/suspects to sit on the jury of the alleged murderers trial. This is the whole point of jury selection!
These issues are not merely the pet peeves of the left, they are the pet peeves of the general public. If the right think that they are unimportant, or as important as the BBC and Unions, then maybe they should look at themselves; they’re out of touch. The BBC enjoys widespread public support (and it’s generally only the Daily Mail and the political classes, both left and right, who attack it) and Unions only become an issue for members of the general public when strike actions inconveniences certain aspects of the general public (when they negotiate to improve working conditions and pay of said same people; not so much).
I can certainly see a role for this jury in re-assessing our relationship with Europe, and perhaps even our membership in the EU (as a leftists, I despise it’s enshrining of free market doctrine). I could even see a role of such a jury in accessing the issues surrounding immigration, if for any other reason than to get the facts out in the open (sans any spin and downright lies put out by politicians and the far-right) and to have a rational public debate on the merits/demerits of immigration.
But seriously, the BBC and Unions? What exactly would be the basis of a juries enquiry into the BBC and Unions. Would it be in the public interest to privatise the BBC, and organisation which is already independent in every meaningful way (i.e. editorially)? Would it be in the interest of the public to curtail/abolish the right to strike, thus castrating the working/middle classes during negotiations with their all-powerful employers?
Seriously, the rights issues with these institutions seem entirely spawned from the fact that they aren’t ‘on their side’.
Whereas the left’s and the public’s issue with the financial sector, is the moral hazard that goes hand in hand of subsidising a financial sector which never seems to pay for its mistakes and yet continues to hold on to the extraordinary privilege of being able to create money from nothing (the route cause of the credit crunch). There issue with the mainstream media is that it has become beholding to a small clique of wealthy magnates, and that it has violated the law (and ethics) for utterly trivial reasons and in ways that have called the judgement of editors and media owners into question (a healthy free press is important; can we trust these morally ambiguous fools to control it?). Their issue with politics is that it has become moribund, and distant from the general public. Would primaries solve this? Is the way that political parties are funded to problem (i.e. are politicians and their parties beholden to their paymasters a little too much)? Are political parties themselves (the centralisation of power into an elite few MPs via the whips) part of the problem? I really can see how the pet peeves of the right (the BBC and the Unions in particular) are a matter of public interest, and certainly not on the same scale as the issues outlined in the ‘In the Public Interest’ proposal.
Max docent this mean the “elite” advising the jury of what to do then which is what I thought they were trying to avoid?
I would imagine that any such jury would have the power to call experts usually external to the legislative process. Thus, whilst I expect that the jury would be subjected to the ‘advice’ of MPs and Lords (from both the pro and con camps), they would also be subjected to the advice of people who actually know what they’re talking about. A key example here would be calling Prof. David Nutt and other members of the ACMD (even those who were dismissed and/or resigned due to the arrogance of our legislators) were a jury called to access legislation w.r.t. drugs. Of course, this would require a competent framework of professionals to assist the jury in selecting experts, otherwise white hall will simply manipulate the process to their advantage.
While it’s hard to disagree with some of the apparently negative comments, it’s much harder to disagree with the proposal itself. As much as I applaud the initiative and those who have signed up to it, wouldn’t it have much greater validity if “unknowns” could add their voices to it? Without that possibility, I’d venture to suggest that those who do and will belittle this initiative will cite a different, albeit progressive and positive, elite promoting their agenda, ie doing the exact thing to which they are objecting.
I want to be positive rather than cynical so how about opening up the possibility for ordinary people like me to add our names to your collective call to arms?
Update on my last post: I’ve just received an e-mail from Neal Lawson of Compass inviting me to sign a petition in support of the proposal – which I have done.
” The Jury would be made up of 1,000 citizens drawn as a random sample of the electorate. It will be a jury of our peers. We do not need yet another inquiry in which one elite asks another elite to tell them what cannot be done.
The Jury will be funded out of the public purse, with a paid secretariat with the resources to commission research and call witnesses.
It will have the power to require attendance where persons will be asked by the public to explain themselves.
Reporting within a year of its launch the convention will study and report……etc.”
Good idea no doubt at all,but who would it report to? How would it be set up – would an Act of Parliament be needed? Problem No1 maybe! And 1,000 members? Or a random selection of part of that number for each case? I noticed it was already referred to as a “convention” ! A great media event no doubt,but I suspect somewhat long winded and cumbersome. Possible problems if found at some stage to be in conflict with legal proceedings, might also be on the horizon.
In reality I only see a sort of Grand Jury situation-where the “Peoples Jury” in fact,would only be able to decide if there was a case to answer-by vote I assume. But if,as that seems quite likely,who would they refer to for further action?
Appreciate the reasons for the suggestion. But this idea is Nuts, no wonder the Left get tainted with being airy fairy.
Why not start with something a little more realistic? Let’s take a gentle first step- say reform the House of Lords into an elected assembly excluding career politicians.
How do you propose we stop careerism creeping into a reformed/elected House of Lords? We could restrict terms, but party political ties would still be prevalent (and that almost as bad). We could abolish political party involvement in the House of Lords, requiring that all candidates be apolitical (and not have been a member of a political party for 5 years prior to their candidature), but then the issue of funding an effective election campaign rears it’s ugly head (public funding?).
The reality is, that without significant alterations to the political and electoral mechanisms (w.r.t. House of Commons) in any elected House of Lords, said House of Lords would simply become a clone of the House of Commons. Given that the ConDems are making such a fuss about getting rid of 50MPs seats, and the financial savings it represents, I see little benefit in following that by creating 1,000 more MPs in the guise of elected Lords.
The upper chamber of a bicameral parliamentary system should (ideally) serve as a chamber of qualified oversight. That is to say that whilst our unqualified careerist politicians write legislature (with the mandate gifted to them by their electorate) the qualified appointees of the upper house scrutinise said legislature and either pass it on for accession by the Head of State (the Queen in our case) or provide feedback to the lower chamber for further discussion. We NEED a fully appointed House of Lords, not a fully elected House of Lords! Only an independently appointed House of Lords, with appointees selected by an independent body charged with selecting people of genuine merit (experts in science, bioethics, medicine, management, international law, diplomacy, etc.. who know what they are talking about) can provide this kind of oversight. The best an elected House of Lords can do is delay legislation by the mere formality of its existence.
Reform of the House of Lords should centre around removing political appointees (like Lord Sugar and Lord Prescot), removing the privilege to appoint Lords from the Prime Ministers office and establishing an open and formal process for appointing (and impeaching/removing were necessary) Lords on the grounds of merit and genuine value (that said appointees that can bring to parliament and the legislative process). Not on an elected upper house, which plays right into the hands of the political parties, who’d like nothing more than to have another elected chamber to play with.
The search for a perfect solution often means nothing at all gets done. Incremental change is (usually) better than nothing at all.
And let’s not reinvent the wheel. Perhaps we can just copy the best system we can find in another country. That’s how many Constitutions were formed in the past.
With all due respect, that is contrived twaddle. Some of the greatest political models in history have arisen from revolution (not reformation) and were the result of political philosophers ‘reinventing the wheel’. The American political system being a good example, with its strict separation of powers (though it has been abused by right-wing extortionists of late).
And let’s not reinvent the wheel. Perhaps we can just copy the best system we can find in another country. That’s how many Constitutions were formed in the past.
LETS reinvent the wheel! Our current square ‘wheel’ is hardly performing well.
Though there are certainly better political models out there (e.g. with written constitutions, proper checks on power, a need for referenda on important issues such as amendments to the constitution, etc…) non of them are perfect, and all suffer a deficit of public AND qualified oversight (politicians are not necessarily qualified).
The House of Lords was/is in the process of evolving into a house of qualified oversight, one populated by experts and learned individuals who are qualified to provide proper oversight (or even block) legislation formulated by laymen legislators (i.e. our MPs). The first step was the abolition of hereditary peers, sadly the Labour party stalled any further reforms (a good thing, since an elected upper house was assuredly their preferred end game). The next steps would be to remove all of the political appointees, establishing a transparent and meritocratic selection process (and a body to oversee that process) and the abolition of the role of the Prime Minister in appointing Lords.
If anything, creating a wholly elected House of Lords is reinventing the wheel, as is attempting to exclude careerism (still no answer as to how one would achieve this) from such an elected chamber. If we go down the elected upper chamber route, we may as well simply switch to a unicameral parliamentary system and avoid the expense of another 1000 MPs in the guise of Lords/Senators. What utility would an elected upper house serve, what could it possibly achieve that its twin sister (the elected lower house) acheive?*
*Note: The US Senate was originally appointed (albeit by politicians directly) and was founded on precisely the same basis of reasoned oversight. The founding fathers didn’t trust the electoral process to hand power to the truly qualified, and the Senate was supposed to be a check on unqualified legislators in the House of Representatives (I may not agree with the selection process, controlled by politicians as it was, but that’s far better than a frankly redundant elected upper chamber). That all changed in 1917 (I think) when an amendment to their constitution gave rise to an elected Senate.
I could not agree more
” LETS reinvent the wheel!”
R
The problem is we don’t have a representative democracy. Your point 3.
Fundamentally we need legal powers to be able to hold our MP’s to account and be able to deselect/recall them during parliament and replace them directly, perhaps even the PM.
We need to untangle them from perceived and real conflicts of interest powers both foreign and domestic including the EU.
I support more legally binding referenda which should deliver this, (Switzerland have this and it works reasonably well).
Our MP’s and our party systems have brought us to this point,which needs serious reform to take us forward in the internet age. A thousand is small when you have millions who feel disenfranchised.
This may help to get our democracy back.