My Lords, I shall say something about the Scottish system of justice. If one is talking about convergence, which part of the United Kingdom one comes from may be relevant to a consideration of the issues. I did my national service in a Scottish regiment and I live in Scotland. The Scottish system of justice differs from the English in relation to verdicts.
The Scottish system at the moment depends on the simple majority. There is a jury of 15 and someone can be found guilty so long as eight on the jury are in favour of guilty. Verdicts are from time to time returned by a simple majority as narrow as that, although most majority verdicts are much more in the area of 13 to two. The fact is, however, that a simple majority verdict is enough for a conviction to be recorded.
So far as the question of lingering doubt or confidence in these verdicts is concerned, my experience as a prosecutor and a judge in Scotland is that that system is accepted without question. There is, of course, an additional element in the Scottish system in that there are three verdicts, not two, and a jury of 15, not 12. I am not concerned to explore the size of the jury or the use of the not proven verdict. The important point is that a simple majority verdict is good enough.
The system has one feature that I think is absent from the proposal in Amendment 1. There is never a question of a failed trial because no verdict has been reached. A Scottish jury always reaches a verdict. There is no question of a failure to reach the required majority because a simple majority will do. If it is not achieved, there is an acquittal. It may be that an acquittal is good enough. When the jury comes to return its verdict, it is either not guilty or not proven. If it is guilty, the jury is then asked, “Is that unanimous or by a majority?” and the foreman will say whether it is a majority or unanimous verdict. The real point and the value of the system for the Scots is that retrials are not required because there is a failure to reach a verdict. If the required figure is not reached, acquittal follows. There is some value in that.
I do not know how far one takes the principle of convergence, but it might be relevant to consider how it applies to those who come from Scotland to serve in any of the three services, who in their domestic system do not have the system which applies in England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland.