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Summary Public Services - Understanding the legal system - D1
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Directly from my public services course which I achieved maximum marks in, this covers D1 of the understanding the legal system module
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Critically analyse the role of lay personnel within the court system of England and WalesIn order to analyse the role of lay personnel their role must be first understood. The role of lay
Personnel within the court system of England and Wales is too bring in people with experiences and
backgrounds that are not legal and have a fresh opinion on situations. Local knowledge is present
through this which can be in certain locations very important especially where regionalisms are very
distinctive. There is also the benefit of having inexpensive personnel making the legal process
cheaper. These lay people when present as a jury will have the decision of whether the accused is
guilty or not and their role is too fairly judge their peers based on the evidence presented by both
defence and prosecution. When they are present as specialist advisers they are there to advice, this
may be part of the defence or prosecution and there advice may be used as evidence, they can also
advise a judge on the best course of action to take, though this only occurs in rare cases and
ultimately the final decision on what’s best is made by the judge and not the Lay person advising. All
this allows a fair trial take place.
In analysing the role of lay personnel it must be remembered that they allow these things to happen
and that paid personnel do not provide these:
Fresh opinions, backgrounds, experiences and attitudes in the court system which prevents
to a degree close mindedness and keeps the court system in touch with the general public
Provides the public a way in which they can be in touch directly with the court system and
lets them judge to a degree their peers and gives the public a feeling of involvement
Helps create a fair trial by allowing many different individuals decide on the verdict of guilt,
the differences ensure that a wide range of judgements decides the finally judgement and
that it’s democratically decided.
They provide local knowledge to cases which can be important and prevents the court’s
ruling from being an “outsider” decision if its agreed upon and includes the locals
Allows specialist to advise upon the case and keep a case fair by ensuring that arguments,
judgements and similar are appropriately informed
Keeps trials fair by including lay personnel
Having clearly defined their role and what they do that no one else does and how it’s important in
the court system, now you can analyse properly their role in the court system. The best way to do
this is too look at what they provide to the court system as shown above and then consider what
would happen in the event that lay personnel were not present. With no lay personnel then the
court system becomes closed and they no longer have any outside opinions, nothing new coming in
so that all the court system has is individuals who have law backgrounds no other and they will seek
to achieve either a conviction or an innocent verdict for the defence but with no lay personnel they
will work only on what they have and when special considerations or information is required they
will not have it, finally the ultimate verdict with no jury goes to the judge and the system would be
reliant upon them to be fair and impartial, if they were anything else no trial would be fair. Having
considered the ramifications of what would happen without the lay personnel it can be understood
what their role truly is and why it is important they are included in the court system. While the lay
personnel are far from being problem free they do ensure that the system remains fair for all and
that the public are not excluded and that justice can be passed as their present allows the whole
court system and judicial machinery to work in a way appropriate to fair democratic nation.
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