Co-incidentally, Stephen Fry recently launched a campaign that aims to overturn this ban. The ban arises from the Juries Act 1974. A section on 'mentally disordered persons' bars from jury service anyone 'who suffers or has suffered from mental illness, ....... and on account of that condition ......... regularly attends for treatment by a medical practitioner'. Rethink, a mental health charity supported by barristers in England and Wales, wants that replaced with a new definition of 'capacity', based on the 2005 Mental Capacity Act, which would allow many of those currently banned to serve, while excluding those who are genuinely unfit.
Campaigners claim that many law-abiding citizens are wrongly excluded from jury service after being treated for conditions such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. One in four Britons suffers mental illness at some point in their lives, and one in 10 is prescribed antidepressants, which would be enough to debar them.
I, for one, am pleased at being spared possible experiences which would add to my present struggles with the Black Dog, but I accept the reasoning which says that just because someone has been treated for such illnesses in the past, they are incapable of ever having the capacity to sit in judgement of others. Rethink cites Winston Churchill as someone who, owing to his depression, would be banned under today's rules.
