The jury system

Jury trials have been part of the English legal tradition since at least the time of
Magna Carta in 1215. But the function of a jury in medieval England was very
different from that of today. In the relatively undeveloped legal scenario of
post-Norman society, the purpose of a jury was twofold: firstly to define what
the law was, and secondly to establish, through personal knowledge of the
defendant, whether the defendant was guilty or not.

In the modern jury system, a group of strangers are asked whether a person did
or did not commit certain acts. They do not bring a personal knowledge of the
defendant into the court, and they are expressly not required to comment on
the law. The judge’s role is to decide on which laws are relevant and on which
piece of evidence can be introduced.

Jury trials are used in many serious criminal cases in common law systems. In
the civil law system juries tend to play a much more marginal role; the judge
usually decides everything: law and facts.

Advantages and disadvantages of the jury system

Several criticisms have been made of the jury system. One is that jury service
can seriously disrupt jurors’ lives, particularly if the juror has a job and the trial
lasts for several weeks or even months.

Another major criticism is that in complex cases such as serious fraud, members
of a jury may not be the best people to decide guilt or innocence. There is a
strong argument that because a judge is trained in the law and has gained
experience in adjudicating court cases, then he or she is in a much better
position to make a verdict than a group of non-experts, some of whom may
have a limited education or little knowledge of legal matters.
There is also the question of costs: a long trial involving 12 jury members
regularly attending court ends up being very expensive for the state. The jury
system could be seen as a luxury that we can no longer afford.

On the other hand, 95 per cent of criminal cases are heard in magistrates
courts without a jury, so trials by jury only represent a small minority of cases.
More importantly, the fact that jury members are selected at random is a
guarantee of democracy: random selection ensures a representative cross-
section of society in terms of age, gender and ethnic background. Indeed, it is
widely held that jury verdicts strengthen democracies, which is why South
Korea and Japan have started to use them. In this respect the jury system is
something of value. Moreover, 12 people working together may often be in a
better position to give a verdict than one person working alone. Every
individual – judges included – has prejudices and preferences.

It may also be easier for a defendant and for the public to accept the
verdict of their peers rather than that of a judge who is often seen as being very
dissimilar from the ‘average person’.

Finally, it could be argued that because the jury system has survived for
800 years, evidently it must work. But others might argue that now is time for a
change.