The object of the Jury Amendment Bill 2023 is to make miscellaneous amendments to the Jury Act 1977, including in response to a statutory review of amendments made to the Act by the Jury Amendment (Verdicts) Act 2006, and for related purposes.

This document evaluates the Government's 'Statement of Public Interest (SPI)' that makes the case for legislative reform.

The assessment finds that the Government’s SPI fails to adequately respond to the SPI questions and thus fails to fulfil the purpose of the SPI: ‘to provide Members with information that will assist them to make an informed decision as to how to deal with the bill, and to demonstrate sound policy-making’. 

Much of this stems from the overarching issue with this Government SPI; that at no point is the specific problem(s) that the Bill seeks to address identified. Additionally, the SPI is seriously lacking in evidence (qualitative, quantitative, or stakeholder feedback) which supports the existence of a problem, and the suitability of this Bill in addressing that problem. 

The introduction of the eight-hour rule in the 2006 majority verdicts amendments was not uncontroversial. Considering that, alongside clear indications in the Statutory Review report that stakeholder input was varied in relation to the appropriate minimum time juries should deliberate before a majority verdict could be returned, the need to provide an exemplary SPI in this instance is even more important. 

In writing their shadow SPI responses the assessors struggled to find additional evidence that a problem exists and that this Bill is the suitable mechanism to address that problem. The Shadow SPI project does not assess whether or not there is a sufficient evidence base for proposed government policies, however, where evidence-based policy making is lacking the SPI cannot meet its intended purpose of providing Members of parliament with information that will assist them to make an informed decision as to how to deal with the bill. 

Assessment: Insufficient