A bill abolishing special juries, passed in the Senate yesterday, is just the first in a line of measures to update Bermuda?s legal system said Attorney General Senator Larry Mussenden.

The Opposition in the House of Assembly had claimed the bill was being rushed through because the Director of Public Prosecutions wanted to use a special jury for the Julian Hall fraud case. Mr. Hall, a former Progressive Labour Party MP, has been charged with stealing more than $500,000 from widow Betty Loraine McMahon.

Sen. Mussenden ? a former policeman, prosecutor and defence lawyer ? said his chambers was hard at work on a bail bill defining the rights of detained people. He said currently people could be locked up on a Wednesday and not be freed until the following Monday.

Consultations were ongoing with Police, defence lawyers, the judiciary and the Department of Public Prosecutions said Sen. Mussenden.

Legislation will be modelled on Britain?s Police and Criminal Evidence Act he said which will govern the detentioning and questioning of suspects.

The changes were recommended by the Justice System Review which sat earlier this year and sought to suggest ways to modernise Bermuda?s laws.

?We are working on a lot of other things ? protection in court for witnesses, particularly child witnesses,? said Sen. Mussenden.

And he said the Chief Justice was hard at work looking at updating Supreme Court rules and establishing a commercial Supreme Court.

Promises to open up the magistrate?s court for payment of fines had already been done said the Attorney General.

Returning to the special jury bill, known as the Criminal Code Amendment (No. 3) Act, Sen. Mussenden said the Caribbean and America did not have them, with ordinary jurors trusted even for the complicated Enron fraud case.

Special juries are jurors identified by the revising panel, which assesses jurors, as having being special because of ?education, qualifications, occupation or experience, a fit and proper person to be a special juror?.

Sen. Mussenden said even the idea of a revising tribunal, which can reject people as being unfit to be on a jury, was troubling and in need of change.

He said: ?Trust me, perhaps in the third term we will have to look at revising tribunals.?

He said special juries, which haven?t been used for more than a decade, were a relic of the past when it was thought jurors from ordinary walks of life could not handle complex cases and so was an insult to the intelligence of Bermudians.

Special juries were abolished in Bermuda in 1951 but brought back in 1971. Sen. Mussenden said they could exclude groups and be viewed as racist.

However Sen. Kenny Bascome said he opposed the bill and the racial argument no longer applied.

?We have just as many educated black people as educated white people,? as he noted the current make-up of the Senate more than demonstrated that fact.

Independent Senator Walwyn Hughes supported the bill but questioned why Government did not also amend the criminal code which allowed women jurors to be excluded from cases involving ?matters of an indecent nature?.

He also said it was too easy for people to exclude themselves from the jury pool. ?Everybody and his mum can get exempted.?

He said BELCO and Cable and Wireless workers were exempted as well as doctors while anybody who had a good excuse and knew how to write a strong letter did not have to serve.

Government Sen. Walter Roban said special juries were discriminatory and it was ironic that when there was no Constitution or Human Rights act they had been abolished but then brought back in more modern times.

Colleague Neville Tyrell said special juries conjured up the spectre of gerrymandering, saying: ?If we can?t support this legislation in 2004 something is definitely wrong.?

Senate President Alf Oughton supported the bill, which was passed without a vote, and said it was long overdue.