Juries, Lay Judges, and Mixed Courts
A Global Perspective

Offers a comprehensive and comparative picture of how countries around the globe use ordinary citizens to decide criminal cases.

Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovi? (Edited by), Shari Seidman Diamond (Edited by), Valerie P. Hans (Edited by), Nancy S. Marder (Edited by)

9781108483940, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 July 2021

350 pages
23.1 x 15.8 x 2.6 cm, 0.707 kg

Although most countries around the world use professional judges, they also rely on lay citizens, untrained in the law, to decide criminal cases. The participation of lay citizens helps to incorporate community perspectives into legal outcomes and to provide greater legitimacy for the legal system and its verdicts. This book offers a comprehensive and comparative picture of how nations use lay people in legal decision-making. It provides a much-needed, in-depth analysis of the different approaches to citizen participation and considers why some countries' use of lay participation is long-standing whereas other countries alter or abandon their efforts. This book examines the many ways in which countries around the world embrace, reject, or reform the way in which they use ordinary citizens in legal decision-making.

1. Introduction Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovic´, Shari Seidman Diamond, Valerie P. Hans and Nancy S. Marder
Part I. Advancements in Lay Participation: 2. The Rise of the Jury in Argentina: Evolution in Real Time Vanina G. Almeida, Denise C. Bakrokar, Mariana Bilinski, Natali D. Chizik, Andre´ s Harfuch, Lilia´n Andrea Ortiz, Maria Sidonie Porterie, Aldana Romano, and Shari Seidman Diamond
3. Twelve Years of Mixed Tribunals in Argentina Mar?´a Ine´ s Bergoglio
4. Lay Participation in the Criminal Trial in Japan: A Decade of Activity and its Sociopolitical Consequences Dimitri Vanoverbeke and Hiroshi Fukurai
5. The Korean Jury System: The First Decade Jaihyun Park
6. The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Spanish Jury Mar Jimeno-Bulnes
Part II. Enduring Systems of Lay Participation: 7. “ …And My Right”: The Magistrates' Courts in England and Wales Stefan Machura
8.“In the Name of the People”: Lay Assessors in Germany Stefan Machura and Christoph Rennig
9 The Jury in Canada: Testing the Comprehensibility of Styles of Jury Instructions and the Effectiveness of Aids Marie Comiskey
Part III. Challenges to lay Participation in Law: 10. Dismissing the Jury: Mixed Courts and Lay Participation in Norway Anna Offit
11. Trials by Peers: The Ebb and Flow of the Criminal Jury in France and Belgium Claire M. Germain
12. The Russian Jury Trial: An Ongoing Legal and Political Experiment Nikolai Kovalev and Sergei Nasonov
13. Trial by Jury in Georgia: A Catalyst for Evolving Independent Courts Nikolai Kovalev and Giorgi Meladze
Part IV. Global Perspectives on Lay Participation: 14. What Hollywood, USA, Teaches the World (Incorrectly and Correctly) about Juries Nancy S. Marder
15. The Case for a Hybrid Jury in Europe John D. Jackson
16. A Worldwide Perspective on Lay Participation Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovic´ and Valerie P. Hans.

Subject Areas: Legal system: general [LNA], Law & society [LAQ], Systems of law [LAF]