The centuries old principle protecting people from being tried twice for the same offence should not be tampered with lightly, Attorney General Dame Lois Browne Evans insisted during Friday's House of Assembly debate on an amendment to the Criminal Code, proposed by the opposition, United Bermuda Party.

"It's a hallowed principle of people's rights that they shall not be tried twice," Dame Lois - a defence lawyer for nearly 50 years - told her colleagues, adding that changing the rule against double jeopardy would represent yet another chapter in the "whittling away" of the rights of accused people.

But the Attorney General indicated that hard scientific evidence may be acceptable as a basis for retrying an acquitted person.

Dame Lois said: "If a country doesn't watch too closely - in the interest of getting convictions, in the interest of saying to the country or the tourists, or saying to the Canadian tourists, or the Canadian parents 'we don't have any crime in Bermuda, or very little' - they would take away many of our rights, just to be able to say that."

She said she has witnessed over the years the erosion of rights of the accused. The number of peremptory jury challenges allowed a defence team has been reduced from seven to three, she said. But the prosecution has a far greater advantage both in terms of resources and procedurally, she continued.

Secondly, she said, the laws of evidence have been changed so that accused people are at a disadvantage if they elect not to go into the witness box in his own defence.

"Now if a person doesn't go into the witness box, take the oath and say 'I'm innocent and that's all I wish to say' - he's presumed to be guilty," she said.

"More and more the rules are being changed that removes people's rights and makes it easier to get a conviction," she said, adding while it is good that such people get acquitted, she had to wonder "who are the people that stand aside and say they ought not to have been acquitted?".

Dame Lois said it was impossible to say at the end of a trial with 100 percent certainty who was right and who was wrong because final judgment was up to God.

"We can do what we like in the courts but it cannot be said there haven't been many miscarriages of justice."

But, she added, it was easy to stir up community outrage at the outcome of a trial and create political pressure for changes.

"Many of the changes have been wrong. The very fact that there was a cry out in England was because people have these attitudes. Racism was at the root of the trial in the Stephen Lawrence case (which led to the UK's moves to review the double jeopardy principle)..."

And that debacle occurred because of racism - "not the laws of evidence, not the rules of criminal law, not the law as its practised" she argued.

She also cited a local case in which a Portuguese man, widely believed to be innocent of a murder charge, was retried and hung after an affidavit was presented by a fellow prisoner saying he had confessed.

"Some loose conversation by another prisoner in the yard one day was the new evidence that took the man back to court and convicted him. Mr. Speaker, one thing you must be clear about - don't mix new and fresh evidence with scientific evidence," she said.

And she lamented the fact that the law has taken too long to accept scientific evidence. Dame Lois recalled a 1957 case in which she successfully used the defence of diminished responsibility and the jury recommended mercy for her client who had been accused of murder.

But the 19-year-old was set to be hung after a local MP started a petition protesting the acquittal. The man's life was only saved after a counter petition was raised and sent off to the Queen.

She pointed out that protection from double jeopardy had only been in Bermuda since 1905, with the establishment of the Criminal Code, although it is a centuries old principle.

She added that Britain was only considering making the changes and it would be a while before a final decision is taken.

She added that Mr. Barritt could also have had the Bar Council look into the matter and followed guidelines taken from a UK Law Commission report. And Dame Lois accused her shadow counterpart of playing politics and "grandstanding" with a complex matter.

The Attorney General faulted her shadow counterpart for not limiting his motion to cases in which the trial has not gone to a jury - as with both the Stephen Lawrence murder case in the UK and the trials for the murder in Bermuda of Canadian teen Rebecca Middleton.

She said that had Mr. Barritt consulted with others, a minority report might have emerged supporting such a qualification, adding: "You can't cry wolf when it is defeated by the numbers of the Government when you haven't even asked the Government to look at it before."

Referring to the Serious Crimes Commission, which recommended a "cautious" approach to reviewing the rule, she said it was not expected that Government would stop its program and deal with the recommendation immediately.

But she said many of the recommendations have already been put into effect.