Yes, it's made a dramatic difference in jurors' understanding of their legal responsibilities.
In this country, Parliament recently enacted a statute criminalizing a number of jury activities. In the past, there were common law rules that would make various actions by jurors a criminal offence, but they've never been made statutory. We needed to make sure that jurors understood this. One of the main issues that has been very problematic here is jurors' understanding that they cannot use the Internet to research their case, look up information about the defendants and so on. This is an issue confronting all jurisdictions that have the jury system.
This was a particular issue of concern for the Lord Chief Justice who sat on a number of cases in which jurors were charged with contempt of court and convicted and imprisoned for this, which seems quite a strong thing to do. We wanted to ensure that we found a way that as many jurors as possible clearly understood what their responsibilities were. If they then decided to ignore those responsibilities, there are greater grounds for prosecution.
This new juror notice now means that almost 100% of jurors now understand their legal responsibilities.