The United Bermuda Party would consider replacing jury panels with ones made up of several judges should it win the next election, The Royal Gazette can reveal.

The idea is part of a proposed UBP shake-up of the criminal justice system - and a zero tolerance approach to policing in the style of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Legislative Affairs spokesman John Barritt said Bermuda's size made it incumbent on Government to question whether the practice of trial by jury is effective in bringing about convictions, due to the risk of the intimidation of panel members.

“The practice of trial by jury sounds all very good in theory but sometimes there is a difficulty in finding a jury that is impartial, in the sense that they do not know the players in the trial,” he said last night. “This is a small community which makes it tough sometimes to serve on a jury.”

But Attorney General Dame Lois Browne-Evans called the proposal “retrogressive” and said she would not expect the public to allow such a change to be made. “Jury members are the people's peers and they are the people who should be on the panel,” she said. “Trial by jury works in countries smaller than ours and it's been working here.”

Mr. Barritt said the idea would primarily be considered for cases involving suspected drug dealers, for which he noted there is “anecdotal” evidence of jury members being threatened.

“I think people are concerned, if you look at the results of drug trials, as to whether or not this is something that is needed. I'm not going to question any jury's decision but it doesn't prevent me from questioning whether the system ought to be reviewed or changed.”

But he said the idea might have merit for other cases involving serious crimes: “I think we would give that serious consideration as well.”

He said, should it form the next government, the UBP would ask the public to make submissions in order to gain an insight into how big a problem jury intimidation was.

And, based on the outcome of that, would then consider whether the outcome of trials, especially narcotics cases, might be better decided by special panels made up three judges.

Dame Lois said: “I don't think anything that they are thinking is progressive. This was an argument that they had immediately after universal suffrage was introduced. There was all this argument by some retrogressive thinking people about this because I guess they were worried that some uneducated and unpropertied people would be making decisions.”

She said: “Bermuda should be very frightened of people who want to go back into the past and I hope that I am still around to protest such behaviour if it happens.”

“If people don't like verdicts or decisions then they do not believe in judgment by one's peers. It's like saying let's go and abolish trials. Before 1954, there was no justice and no equality of justice. Women weren't even allowed on the jury when I started.”

Other touted changes in a what would be a major overhaul of the criminal justice system by the UBP include longer prison sentences for criminals and adjusted sentencing options for judges, allowing them to send repeat offenders to jail for longer.

The news came as the party proposed a crackdown by Police on “even the smallest offence” in the style of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's zero tolerance approach to crime in Manhattan during the 1990s. “We have a view that when people feel they can get away with committing the more minor offences then the envelope starts to get pushed in terms of what is suddenly acceptable,” Mr. Barritt told The Royal Gazette. “The lines get blurred and they get pushed. In New York City, when they cracked own on minor crime, it had a noticeable effect on major crime too.”

He was responding to Home Affairs Minister Terry Lister, who earlier this week accused the former government of wasting money and time by focusing on the capture and imprisonment of small time drug dealers rather than on gathering intelligence to catch “Mr. Big”.

“Once you back off from Operation Clean Sweep (the UBP's mid-1990s drug crackdown), you have to ask yourself what it really accomplished,” Mr. Lister told The Royal Gazette. “Just about everybody who went to court was a street corner drug pusher. Mr. Big did not come out of that.”

However, Mr. Barritt asked: “Why not lengthen sentences in order to encourage small-time pushers to inform on their higher-ups?”

Asked whether the fact that small-time drug dealers would often rather go to jail than inform on their friends represented a major challenge, Mr. Barritt said: “It may be one of the challenges but I don't think the answer is to say we give up and we won't pursue people who break the law.”

Other ideas included the strengthening of ties between Bermuda and overseas drug enforcement agencies in a bid to tighten up interdiction and a more effective approach to dealing with the problem of drugs in prison. It was also proposed to use “the latest drug-fighting technology” in tackling the scourge, although it was unclear what form this technology would take. The Royal Gazette was unable to contact Mr. Lister for comment before Press time last night.