We have recently discovered that the jury system, much beloved of the legal establishment, doesn't always work very well.

The jury in the Vicky Pryce case showed, by their questions to the judge, that they didn't really understand what they were doing. Well, I say "the jury", but in reality, I suspect it was just one or two members of the jury. Reading between the lines, I would guess that most of the jury understood perfectly well what they were doing, but one or two rogue jurors had other ideas, and weren't going to listen to what their more sensible colleagues were telling them. The questions to the judge were phrased in such as way that I suspect the sensible members of the jury were just making sure that the judge would explain to the rogue members what they had been trying to explain all along.

We've all heard about this because it's a high profile case that was all over the news long before the jury ever had to start considering anything. But I wonder whether juries frequently misunderstand things in all the everyday cases that never make it onto the news?

The legal establishment will tell you that the jury system is one of the things that makes British justice great. And I must admit I do like the way that it ensures that individual judges don't get too much power. There is something reassuring about being judged by a group of your peers.

But this has made me wonder whether we are really going about selecting juries in the right way. I am worried about 2 aspects of the way in which juries are selected: that they are conscripted, and that no consideration is given to whether the individuals picked are reasonable people who are capable of understanding what happens in court.

It strikes me as very odd indeed that we use conscription for juries in what is supposed to be a free society. The Royal Navy gave up conscription in 1814. They sensibly realised that sailors who were serving voluntarily were likely to be better motivated than ones who were only there because they had been compelled to be there by force. After almost 200 years, I would have hoped that the legal system would have cottoned on to that rather obvious fact. I can't help thinking that volunteer jurors would be less likely than conscripts to spend the trial listening to their mp3 players, for example.

I have no doubt that a great many people would volunteer for jury service, particularly if jurors were paid a fair rate for their time.

And shouldn't we have at least some sort of minimum qualification to be on a jury? Obviously it would be quite wrong to insist that jurors be legally qualified: that would defeat the point of being judged by ordinary people. I suspect the bar needs to be set quite low. Perhaps you'd need at least a couple of A levels to be eligible? Perhaps you could take a short test to check how well you understand the sort of things that are presented in court? I don't know what the best way would be: that sort of thing would be best decided by appropriate research.

It's very rare to hear any of the legal establishment criticise the jury system. It seems to be something of a sacred cow, and it's regarded as "just not done" for those within the legal profession to dissent.

But I can't help thinking that if the 12 jurors in the Vicky Pryce case were all there of their own free will and had demonstrated that they met some kind of minimum standard of suitability for jury service, we wouldn't now be facing the bill for an expensive retrial.