Discussing the jury

Abstract

This article argues that the institution of the Popular Jury faces significant short-term challenges that will lead to a debate about its current design and its conceptual adequacy to survive the social changes rapidly introduced by technology. We argue that the institution of the jury must be redefined to survive, otherwise it is doomed to disappear from our legal system. Regarding its institutional design, the starting point is to understand that the popular jury is a political institution with origins in Classical Greece but adapted to representative democracy: jurors, both candidates and elected officials, serve as representatives of the entire electorate of the court's district. However, this representation is exercised within the administration of justice, fulfilling jurisdictional functions from which professional judges are displaced, and the popular jury is also subject to the imperatives of the rule of law and constitutional guarantees. This institutional and conceptual hybridization is the source of all the significant problems we have observed since its implementation in 1996. With the turn of the century, the evolution of the legal system and new technologies have added functional challenges and problems to the institution, so that the significant problems in its design are now compounded by urgent challenges and problems.