Jury equity in the Bill: the advocate, the speech and the sanction
Baroness Chakrabarti has tabled an amendment to the Courts and Tribunals Bill that would stop advocates being held in contempt for reminding a jury of the principle of jury equity. A committee of the House of Lords has begun line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill.
The amendment was prompted by the contempt proceedings issued against Rajiv Menon KC of Garden Court Chambers. Menon represented a Palestine Action activist at Woolwich Crown Court, and the contempt arose from his closing speech. Orders were made by three judges. The Court of Appeal has stayed the proceedings so that his appeal against those orders can be heard.
Speaking at a launch event for the Criminal Bar Association's Black Barristers' Committee last week, Keir Monteith KC, the committee's founding chair and a colleague of Menon's in chambers, said the amendment would prevent advocates who refer to jury equity in their speeches from being prosecuted for contempt or sanctioned. Baroness Chakrabarti was a guest speaker at the same event.
The clause says that in a criminal court before a jury, "no advocate is prohibited from reminding the jury of the principle of jury equity", and that they cannot be held in contempt or sanctioned for doing so. It defines jury equity as "the principle that jurors cannot be required to reach a verdict of guilty by reason of any judicial direction or any threat of sanction".
What the drafting does, and does not do
Two things are worth noticing, because both are narrower than the coverage suggests.
It protects the advocate. It does not create a new direction, and it does not oblige a judge to say anything at all to a jury. The standard directions are untouched.
Its subject is the sanction, not the speech. It does not licence an advocate to argue a case badly, or to invite a jury to disregard the evidence. It removes a penalty from a submission of law.
This is not a new idea
Jury equity gets described as though it were a trick found by defence counsel in the 1970s. It is older than that. In Bushell's Case in 1670 the court held that jurors could not be fined or imprisoned for returning a verdict the judge disliked, and the reasoning has never been displaced. Its consequences are still with us in less dramatic form: there is no appeal from an acquittal, and the prosecution cannot ask the Court of Appeal to look again at a not guilty verdict.
So the jury is the one decision-maker in a criminal trial whose verdict cannot be corrected afterwards. A judge can direct an acquittal. A judge cannot direct a conviction.
The whole design depends on that asymmetry, and it is not a technicality. It is the reason the tribunal is trusted with the defendant's liberty in the first place.
Telling a jury that the verdict is theirs is not an incitement to lawlessness. It is an accurate description of the constitution they have been sworn into.
Where the line sits
The line is between informing and subverting, and it is not hard to hold. An advocate who tells a jury that the verdict belongs to them, and that they cannot be compelled to return one they do not believe, is stating the law. An advocate who tells a jury to convict or acquit regardless of the evidence, because of who the defendant is or what might happen outside the courtroom, is doing something else. That has never been permitted, and this clause does not permit it.
Contempt, though, is a sanction aimed at the advocate personally. It sits badly against a duty that requires the advocate to put the client's case fully, including the parts a judge would rather not hear. The advocates who most need the protection are the ones in the cases that attract attention: unpopular clients, contested prosecutions, trials with a political edge. If the price of a submission of law in a closing speech is a personal contempt risk, the rational course is silence, and the defendant pays the bill for it.
My view
I think the amendment is doing something modest and correct, and I would not overstate it. It tidies the relationship between a duty owed to a client and a sanction aimed at the person doing the arguing. The point in issue is a question of law, and there was an appellate route available, which the Court of Appeal has now taken by staying the proceedings. Questions of law are usually better resolved that way than by proceedings against the person who raised them.
What I would not do is treat the amendment as though it had passed. It has not. It may not survive committee stage, and it has to get through the Commons. Until either the appeal or the amendment lands, the position is the one advocates already know.
What a firm with a trial listed should do this week
First, raise the line of argument in the absence of the jury. Before the speech, put the proposed submission to the judge and get a ruling on the record. That is the difference between a considered ruling and an objection taken in front of twelve people.
Second, keep a note of what you put and what came back. A short attendance note is enough. If it is ever needed, a contemporaneous record is worth ten reconstructed ones.
Third, comply on the day. An advocate who is right about the law and wrong about the courtroom is still in contempt. Take advice afterwards.
Fourth, do not treat the clause as law yet. If an advice or a supervision note refers to it, describe it as a tabled amendment and say what the current position is.
The Lords committee starts today. Firms with trials listed this month should assume nothing has changed.
If you would like an independent view of where your firm stands on compliance, I offer a complimentary health check, with no obligation. Get in touch and we can arrange a time to talk it through.
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Ashley Barwick, Fraxinus Business Associates. This post is general information and does not constitute legal advice. Fraxinus Business Associates is not authorised to provide legal advice.
Sources
Law Society Gazette, "Chakrabarti seeks contempt exemption for jury speeches", Monidipa Fouzder, 10 November 2026. https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/chakrabarti-seeks-contempt-exemption-for-jury-speeches/5128472.article
Law Society Gazette, "Court of Appeal stays Menon contempt proceedings", 2026. https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/court-of-appeal-stays-menon-contempt-proceedings/5127500.article
Parliament, Courts and Tribunals Bill, amendment 10040252. https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/4083/stages/21266/amendments/10040252
Bushell's Case (1670) 1 Mod 118.
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