Many thanks to Justin for the corrections and clarifications. I am
pretty sure that the jury system was in use in Anglo-Saxon England, in
the form however of the hundreds. Regardless of the form it took juries
are a decentralization of power. It is true, as Justin points out,
that the juries were associated with the King's Courts. Nevertheless,
as King Charles II learned, in association with William Penn, juries
can be independently minded. (It was a grand jury that famously refused
to indict Penn for holding a religious service on a street corner.) To
this day, juries are the key reason why the Anglo-American system of
justice is the best in the world.
The gradual process of making the justice system more responsive to
social needs was a key part of the emergent of the bourgeois class.
Andrew Hagen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"To none will we sell, and none deny or delay, right or justice." --
Magna Charta
On Thu, 24 May 2001 13:41:10 -0000, Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
>Andrew's comment son the history of law require some correction. The common
>law jury of the English middle ages was not a revival of whatever the Greeks
>had, in the spirit of the Renaissance; it was a wholly native growth. Its
>origins are a bit vexed; originally, it appears to have emerged from the
>practice of having one's neighbors vouch for one's honesty, integrity, and
>so forth, and only later did the jury come to have a fact-finding role--well
>after Magna Carta! (no definite article: not THE MC, just MC_, And
>cvertainly not in the Anglo-Saxon period. Finally, the common law was nota
>product of "rough equality": it was a creation of the royal judiciary of
>Henry II and Edward I, imposed by the King's Bench and the Court of Common
>Pleas in a suuccessful attempt to grab power from the nobility and the
>church, which had their own courts and judicial powers. It's definitely not
>an intsnce of power from "below." --jks
>
>In addition, while it is true that civil (Roman-style) law does not have
>binding precedent, that does not mean that civilians (as civil lawyers are
>calld) and civil law judges don't cite caselaw. They do, the way common
>lawyers cite what we call "persuasive" authority, that is, anything not from
>the higher court in one's own jurisdiction.
>
>
>>
>>The jury system, invented by the Greeks or some ancient predecessor,
>>was revived in Britain long before William the Conqueror invaded the
>>island. Taken by itself, the jury system limits the power of the
>>sovereign. The basic tenet of the jury system is that representatives
>>of the community decide the guilt or innocence, liability or
>>non-liability of parties to a judicial proceeding.
>>
>>. . . .
>>The stagnant Church Latin of medieval Engalnd that the courts
>>rigorously enforced at the time forced lawyers to re-use old
>>arguments. Thus began the capacity of prior legal outcomes to dictate
>>the shape of future legal outcomes. This was an important innovation.
>>In Roman law, for instance, precedent was not a recognized concern, and
>>although some laws didn't change much over time, one would not have
>>cited the case of Marcus Rex the Younger from the fifth year of the
>>reign of Hadrian in one's own case, for it would not have had
>>precedential value. The emergence of precedent allowed further
>>certainty in legal decisions. With more certainty came more
>>predictability, and commensurately, less risk.
>>
>>E
>>
>>
>>
>
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