UK jury-based law courts are unjust

I didn't realise that people with a diagnosis (or specifically those who have recieved treatment. I'm unsure of the law) were excluded from jury service.

The justice system is meant to be fair and it isn't when huge sections of the population are excluded from serving as jurists because at some point in their life they have experienced a certain condition that may or may not have impaired their decision making capabilities. Its one of those idiotic social stigmas that has made it into the legal system and caused disadvantage through incompetence rather than malice (Hanlon's Razor again).

This unintented way that mad people are disadvantaged by society is a black mark on the UK legal system. A jury that doesn't represent the full spectrum of humanity is like a sample of the population that isn't correctly stratified yet it is construed as being representative. It means that there is an implicit lack of understanding of emotional and behavioural health. It means that every legal decision made by jury against a person with a diagnosis is potentially unfair.

There already exists a stigma from reciept of a diagnosis. Depression may be less stigmatised now but schizophrenia carries a high public stigma. People who have suffered these experiences understand the complexities of the human experience better than those who have lived ordinary lives.

It means people who have shown the symptoms of mental illness or mental health problems are misunderstood and disadvantaged by a legal system that depends on the fairness of the decision-making system at its very core. Yet by excluding mad people - because that's where I assume the legislation came from, the fear of the mad or the expectation that a single incidence of mad behaviour somehow makes that person forever lack decision making capability and judgement - from jury service the legal system is biased towards the old paradigm of normality.

Practically it means that emotional problems, behavioural problems and psychosis are misunderstood by jurists. Its means that people who go through these symptoms which are described as illnesses are still treated the same way by the law, very much like in a recent case where the Chinese executed a man suffering from mental illness (http://www.reprieve.org.uk/akmalshaikh).

There are some instances where decision making systems used a jury of peers rather than a jury of laypeople. The proponents of trial by a jury by peers would be mortified at the idea that people with mental illnesses are tried by people who supposedly have never been through those difficult times in life's journey.

Perhaps the reason that people with mental health problems are excluded from jury service is because it is true that a person who loses their capacity once or even on a periodic basis is incapable of ever making a good decision, even when they are in a more stable frame of mind. I think that's utter bollocks but I guess that's because I'm a bit mad and am incapable of making a good judgement.