5Guiding principles

5 Guiding principles

(1) The Parliament recognises that—

(a) the role of the jury in a criminal trial is to determine the issues that are in dispute between the prosecution and the accused; and

(b) in recent decades, the law of jury directions in criminal trials has become increasingly complex; and

(c) this development—

(i) has made jury directions increasingly complex, technical and lengthy; and

(ii) has made it increasingly difficult for trial judges to comply with the law of jury directions and avoid errors of law; and

(iii) has made it increasingly difficult for jurors to understand and apply jury directions; and

(d) research indicates that jurors find complex, technical and lengthy jury directions difficult to follow.

(2) The Parliament further recognises that it is the responsibility of the trial judge to determine—

(a) the matters in issue in the trial; and

(b) the directions that the trial judge should give to the jury; and

(c) the content of those directions.

(3) The Parliament further recognises that it is one of the duties of legal practitioners appearing in a criminal trial to assist the trial judge in his or her determination of the matters referred to in subsection (2).

(4) It is the intention of the Parliament that a trial judge, in giving directions to a jury in a criminal trial, should—

(a) give directions on only so much of the law as the jury needs to know to determine the issues in the trial; and

(b) avoid using technical legal language wherever possible; and

(c) be as clear, brief, simple and comprehensible as possible.

(5) It is the intention of the Parliament that this Act is to be applied and interpreted having regard to the matters set out in this section (to be known as the guiding principles).