Government is to introduce a bill to clamp down on mistrials because jurors have dropped out.

A juror may be discharged for a variety of reasons including illness, intimate knowledge of the complainant or defendant or an emergency.

Once the juror is discharged, the law requires both the Crown and the Defence to consent for the trial to continue, otherwise the case is aborted.

But under the new bill the consent provisions of the accused and the Crown will be repealed and the trial will continue as long as there are ten jurors on the jury.

The trial judge will always have a discretion to abort the trial.

Attorney General Larry Mussenden said the current system was very wasteful.

"There is enormous wastage and risks when trials are aborted although it is hard to put a cost on this, as it involves many departments."

It means wasted juror time and costs, legal aid costs, wasted court space and wasted time of judges, lawyers police and corrections personnel as well as the cost of bringing in foreign witnesses.

Sen. Mussenden said: "Then there are the un-quantifiable costs, such as the witnesses who will not testify a second time, and the general loss of confidence in a judicial system which appears not to be able to get cases tried.

"Also, the media are prone to highlight the fact of the mistrial as 'A collapse of a Supreme Court trial", which further erodes the confidence and pride that everyone should have in our justice system."

House coverage continues on Page 8