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Bar Mock Trial Competition 2019/20 Judge's Guide Bar Mock Trials Competition Judge's Guide

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Bar Mock Trial Competition 2019/20 Judge's Guide Bar Mock Trials Competition Judge's Guide Bar Mock Trial Competition 2019/20 Judge's Guide Bar Mock Trials Competition Judge's Guide Introduction to the Bar Mock Trials Thank you for agreeing to act as a Judge in this year’s Bar Mock Trial Competition. We are entering the 29th cycle of the competition and over 200 schools across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have applied this year. The competition is a practical and challenging way to educate young people about their legal rights and responsibilities, the criminal justice system, and the legal process and profession generally, while at the same time improving their public speaking, analytical and team-working skills. It involves teams of students aged 15-18 from state schools across the UK presenting opposing sides of specially written criminal cases in real Crown Court buildings. The students take on most of the roles in the court and their performances are judged by real judges and senior barristers/advocates. We simply would not be able to run the competition without the assistance of volunteers like you. The Young Citizens team and everyone else involved in the competition very much appreciate your hard work and support. This document will outline exactly what your role involves and key information about the competition. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch should you have any questions or queries, via 020 7566 4154 or [email protected] Thank you once again and we hope that you enjoy the role of Judge and your involvement in this year’s competition. Best, The Mock Trials Team Young Citizens Background Young Citizens is an iniative of the Citizenship Foundation. The Citizenship Foundation is a charity (no. 801360) that was set up in 1989. We inspire people to take part in society as equal members. We help them understand the law, politics and democratic life. We promote participation, we help teachers to teach citizenship and we work with young people on the issues that matter to them. We want a democracy in which everyone has the knowledge, skills and confidence to take part as effective citizens. The Bar Mock Trial Competition is supported by the General Council of the Bar of England and Wales, by the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland and by the Bar Library in Northern Ireland. The Competition is also supported by the four Inns of Court: Lincoln's Inn, Inner Temple, Middle Temple and Gray’s Inn as well as the regional Circuits. 1 © Young Citizens 2019 Bar Mock Trials Competition Judge's Guide Introduction to the Competition Citizenship education is about empowering young people with the knowledge, skills, behaviours and confidence required if they are going to be active and engaged in society. A key element of this is public legal education (PLE): introducing young people to the law and the legal system, helping to enable them to recognise and address legal problems they may encounter. This is important because the law is at once ubiquitous and esoteric: it pervades many aspects of people’s lives but is often perceived to be intended for or likely to be understood by only those few with specialist knowledge. For twenty nine years the Bar Mock Trial Competition has been educating young people about the criminal justice system, while at the same time improving their ‘soft skills’, in a practical and challenging way. How it Works The competition has two stages: regional heats which take place at Crown Court buildings across the UK in November, and a national final in March. Schools are allocated to regional heats where they will present opposing sides of specially written criminal cases in a live format against other schools over three rounds. The two highest scoring schools then proceed to the fourth round to determine the regional winner who will progress to the national final. Schools must present the prosecution and defence for Case One and the prosecution or defence for Case Two. This will be determined by a draw that the Programmes Coordinator will issue to schools. Schools should prepare the prosecution and defence of both cases because the draw is subject to change, and they will be expected to present the other side of Case Two if they proceed to the fourth round (where both schools that reach the final round have presented the same side, this will be decided by a coin toss). The winner of the regional heat will go forward to compete against the other regional heat winners in the national final to determine the national winner. One of the cases used at the regional heat will be dropped and replaced by a new, third case for the national final. The Programmes Coordinator is an employee of Young Citizens and liaises with the schools, courts, regional coordinators, barristers/advocates and judges to ensure that the competition runs smoothly. The regional coordinators are practising barristers/advocates and judges who are assigned to a heat and organise the volunteers. Not all heats have a regional coordinator and in this instance you will liaise with the Programmes Coordinator employed by Young Citizens. 2 © Young Citizens 2019 Bar Mock Trials Competition Judge's Guide Key Rules The rules of the competition must be adhered to at all times; failure to do so may result in the offending team being disqualified from the competition. The rules are as follows: No new evidence Students must not introduce new evidence (that is not contained in the witness statements). It is not fair to expect either a student playing a witness or a student playing a barrister to ask or be asked about things outside the scope of the witness statement. The only exception is when the evidence is a direct, logical and non-contradictory detail easily deduced by the other evidence. No memorised scripts Students should not read excessively from notes or speak from memorised scripts. It is much easier to perform well if the students can act spontaneously and judges should give more marks for this. Keep to time limits Students must keep within the time limits set. The judge should be aware of the time limits and if students go over, they should be penalised. Judge’s decision is final The judge’s decision on the day of the heat is always final. There is no appeal system after decisions have been made. It is not possible to change the scores after the event. Variations between the competition and real life • Both the prosecution and the defence team make opening and closing speeches; • No re-examination or objections are permitted; • The role of court clerk and usher are slightly different to ensure these roles are equal; • Witnesses are permitted to sit in court prior to giving their evidence. 3 © Young Citizens 2019 Bar Mock Trials Competition Judge's Guide Being a Judge You will need to read and familiarise yourself with the cases prior to the day of the event. This is essential as you will need to be familiar with witness statements in order to assess whether or not the witnesses are sticking to their statement and whether or not the lawyers are introducing new evidence, as you will need to mark accordingly. Please also familiarise yourself with the order of procedure and the time allocations. The competition’s roles and order of procedure do vary slightly from what happens in the real Crown Court to make the competition format work better. Please judge according to the competition, and not the way it is done in court. The students’ performances should determine the judge’s scores, rather than the merits of the case. The actual verdict reached in the trial is irrelevant to the score of the team. As the competition runs nationwide, it is very important that judging is consistent across all heats. The following guidelines should be followed strictly. Guidelines 1. At the end of each trial, make sure that all the relevant boxes are filled in with a mark and add up the individual marks to determine the overall score for each team. Don’t forget to include the overall team score for both teams. 2. Do not award half-marks. 3. One team must score more than the other - draws are not permitted. 4. Give your completed judging sheet to the court clerk (if the top of the sheet has not been filled out already please ensure it is clearly labelled as this will greatly assist the scorer). 5. Do not intervene in the proceedings at any time (unless there has been a serious breach of the guidelines). 6. Please ensure marks are allocated based on the guidelines. 7. Refrain from making personal comments to the students regarding appearance unless related to an obvious witness costume. 8. Remember - the competition has inspired many young people to pursue a career in law. Be encouraging, inclusive and help all young people attending to feel that the law is for them, as much as for anyone else. 4 © Young Citizens 2019 Bar Mock Trials Competition Judge's Guide Gender To clarify, all of the names that we use in the cases are non-gender-specific to enable the roles to be played by any student. The students should be prepared to refer to the person to (or about) whom they are actually speaking in the actual trial on the day of the heat by the preferred gender of the actual person. The confusion lies where the students have practised the case with their teammates and the person playing the role on their team is of a different gender to the person playing that role at the actual trial. Please note that if the student does not follow this rule that it is considered to be ‘speaking from a memorised script’.
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