I was going to come to that point, but let me deal with it now. BSL is treated as a language. It has its own grammatical structure and syntax; it is recognised as a minority language in the UK. There is not a sign for every word, but words can be spelled out where a sign is not possible. The noble Lord and I have both had cases where we have had simultaneous foreign language interpretation. It is also the case that not every word in every language is easily translatable into another language. Certainly, we have looked at that point, and we do not think that that should be a bar to a deaf juror effectively participating in a jury. For these purposes, BSL is sufficient to enable the juror to participate effectively, but depending again on the nature of the case, that may be a factor in a particular case which the judge would want to take into account.
It is important to start from the proposition that everyone should be able to serve as a juror unless there are good reasons to believe that they would be unable to do so effectively. I underline that word “effectively” in the instant case. I come back to the fact that deaf jurors who can lip-read serve successfully, and we do not believe that there is a reason why there should be a blanket ban on jurors who need BSL interpreters to serve.
Picking up some other points, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, asked about the obligation point and whether there would be a special dispensation. No, there would not be a special dispensation. Like any other juror, the deaf juror who needed a BSL interpreter would have to ask for permission to be excused. Of course, given that the judge would also be considering whether they could effectively participate, perhaps the anterior question would be their effective participation, and then the question would arise as to whether they could be excused. That would also apply, of course, to any other juror who was a lip-reader. One would imagine that a judge would be sympathetic to a lip-reading juror who might say to the judge, “I know that I can serve, but I am very concerned that I might miss something. My lip-reading is good, if not 100%, but I would rather not serve.” Ultimately, however, that would be up to the judge. There would not be a special dispensation.
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On the technological developments which the noble and learned Lord also raised, we are absolutely looking at that. The problem with the technology at the moment—and here it seems that BSL interpreters are better—is that the technology is not as good for debates or discussions, but I imagine that were we to be having this discussion in five or 10 years’ time, the landscape might be different. It is certainly something we are keeping a very close eye on.
The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, asked about people who do not speak English and people who do not read. My noble friend Lord Attlee referred us to Section 10 of the Juries Act. These are not disabilities in the same sense under the Equalities Act. What we want to do here is provide reasonable adjustments for people who have a physical disability in that context. For people who can rely on speech to text, again, there would not be a problem, as with a lip-reader, because there would not need to be a 13th or 14th person in the jury room. Again, a deaf person who has excellent speech to text will be able to serve, subject to them serving effectively in the instant case—it is only that the fact that we need to open the door of the jury deliberation room to the 13th or 14th person.
We have not done shadow juries or modelling because this is likely, in practice, to affect very few people. It might be said against me: why are you bothering then, if it will really just be a handful of people a year? The short answer is: because it is important. It is important that people with disabilities should be able to participate in our society and fulfil their civic duty if they possibly can. Whether that is 100 people, 20, five or one, the principle is the same.
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, for drawing specific attention to the Scottish research. We were aware of some of that, but
we will look at it now in more detail. I am very grateful to him and I have already passed that on to officials. However, for the reasons I have set out, I invite the Committee to permit Clause 165 to be part of the Bill. I suggest that it is right in principle and we can make it work in practice.