My College of Arts and Law Undergraduate Research Scholarship involved me researching whether judicial directions are an effective safeguard alongside Dr Samantha Fairclough. Whilst this topic latched onto criminal law, which I had studied in my first year, it relates more to court procedure, which is not something we specifically covered. Having enjoyed the module and recognising Dr Fairclough from my lectures with her, I was drawn to this project.
My project revolved around judicial directions and to begin I started with the basics by researching the different types of judicial directions. I learnt that they are a set of instructions that judges give to the jury in Crown Court trials for various purposes. Sometimes they are referred to as judicial warnings, because the jury for instance may be warned about not placing too much weight on previous convictions.
Having identified their purpose, I conducted a literature review in relation to whether judicial directions actually work. I specifically found this part interesting, as I researched the theory of there potentially being a ‘backfire effect’, meaning that when the judge tells the jury not to pay attention to some evidence such as previous convictions, it actually makes the jury pay more attention to the evidence. All of a sudden my project not only centred around law, but also psychological theories too, which provided possible explanations for this effect.
Lastly, I considered views and attitudes in relation to judicial directions. I first of all looked at how courts discuss judicial directions. This meant that I examined cases from the Supreme Court, the European Court of Human Rights and even cases from Australia and America. I analysed how they perceived judicial directions and came across some judges that outright question why we have them and others treating them as an essential safeguard. Lastly, I evaluated the views of criminal practitioners from data that Dr Fairclough had collated during another project. Admittedly, this was something I wanted to jump to straight away at the beginning of my project, as I was so intrigued by it, but Dr Fairclough had advised me to look at this at the end of my project. Once I got to this stage, I really understood why: I felt like I was able to analyse their views to a higher degree, since I was able to also make connections with my research from the previous weeks.
I truly enjoyed this research scholarship and the length of the project really allowed me to research this project in great detail. Being able to share and discuss my research with Dr Samantha Fairclough along the way is something that I really liked. Her guidance and support really helped me. The project has definitely made me gain an appreciation of just how much dedication and concentration goes into academic research and how encouraging it can be when you find the information you were looking for, but also how disheartening it can be when you reach a dead end. It is especially the latter I initially did not expect.
Overall, I had a great time undertaking this undergraduate research project and I would definitely recommend it to students that enjoyed doing an Extended Project Qualification at school or were thinking of doing one but didn’t get around to it.
Helga Polz, LLB Law with German Law