Jury direction – an antipodean experiment

Justice Mark Weinberg (Judge of the Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria and Inns of Court Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London in 2016-17) discusses difficulties with the length and complexity of jury directions experienced in a number of common law countries in recent years. His paper looks in particular at the situation in Australia where, in some respects, jury directions had become a major problem for the criminal justice system and considers the wider application of the Australian solutions to lawyers in England and Wales.