My Lords, I ask the Committee to forgive me for using legal language. Some years ago, I had a case in Newport. It was a murder trial in which the victim was profoundly deaf, the defendant was profoundly deaf and four or five of the witnesses were profoundly deaf. This trial proceeded with three sign language interpreters always in the courtroom: one for the defendant, one for the witness and one behind the judge, positioned so that everybody, including the many profoundly deaf people in the public gallery, could see what was happening.
When I first looked at this provision, I thought, like everyone else would, that surely a person who is profoundly deaf should be entitled to carry out their public duty. But the practicalities of it make that an impossible idea. For a deaf juror, there has to be a succession of people interpreting what is going on in the court in sign language. First of all, that is an immense burden on him—he is different from everyone else; and, secondly, while what is said in the court can be heard by everyone else, we do not know whether the person doing the signing gets it right. Nobody can really tell if that is the case, unless, as in my case, you have someone familiar with sign language in the box with the defendant.
How can we be sure that that juror understands the nuances of a summing-up, in which the judge sets out the law that the jury is to apply? Can it be the case that some other person who knows sign language checks that the proper interpretation is being made of what may be very technical language? As I learned, the sign language interpreter is not translating word for word but is conveying ideas. During that case I also discovered that sign language interpreters and witnesses who give their evidence by signing are quicker than people using ordinary speech. It is not a slower procedure, rather it actually speeds things up; the rest of the court have to hold the sign language interpreters back.
However, in the jury room, there is no way in which a profoundly deaf person can follow the arguments being made—passionate and otherwise: nobody can be sure that every nuance of what the other jurors are saying is being transmitted, and nobody can be sure that an interruption or question from a profoundly deaf person is being accurately translated and represents his thoughts.
I take the argument of principle that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, put forward, but from a practical point of view, and from my experience of that trial, it is impossible for a fair trial to take place.