individual & court system
'Juries have had their day. Justice is too important to be left in the hands of 12 amateurs who would rather be elsewhere and lack judgement and expertise.'The theory behind the use of juries in the justice system is that a group of randomly chosen citizens will represent the will of the entire community. Therefore, theoretically at least, the community as a whole controls the justice system. However, there is argument in favour of replacing juries with informed experts who are better qualified to serve justice in a group of people, because most jurors 'would rather be elsewhere and lack judgement and expertise'. In contrast, some argue that the existing justice system works as desired, and so should not be changed. In order to examine the merits of both arguments, the advantages and disadvantages of juries must be compared, as must the advantages and disadvantages of replacing juries with experts.The main advantage of using juries in the justice system is that, supposedly, the views of the community are reflected in this group of people. By randomly selecting people for jury duty, it is hoped that these people will be representative of the will of the wider community, quite similar in theory to a parliament. The reason th
This is an example of how reform is necessary for the jury system to improve, however the reform must be carefully examined and evaluated before it is implemented. One of the very strong arguments for ending the use of juries in the justice system is that jurors often lack expertise in the legal system, and are inexperienced in a courtroom situation. Therefore, it is impossible to choose jurors on the basis of knowledge and rationality. at this is said to be an advantage of using juries is that the aim of justice, in the criminal sense, is to protect the community as a whole from undesirable danger, therefore the members of the a community should be able to serve justice themselves. However, the values of these people were almost certainly different to the values of those controlling the system today. It is physically impossible to catalogue what type of knowledge of the legal system potential jurors have, and it is impossible to catalogue people's logical and rational thinking capabilities. Unfortunately, the will and views of any community are not defined clearly, and are usually quite diverse, and thus it is doubtful that every jury's findings represent the will of the majority in a community. Many countries have been subject to the same legal system for a century or more, and a change in that would mean a change in the fundamental operation of that society. After examining both sides of the argument regarding the use of juries in the justice system, it becomes clear that neither the current jury system nor the abolishing of juries altogether is a perfect solution. It is argued that juries in some form have been in use for centuries, and the system has worked flawlessly, or at least adequately, since it's inception. For example, a jury sentenced Tasmanian gunman Martin Bryant to life imprisonment, and this finding was met with resounding approval by the public, demonstrating the effectiveness of using a jury. What must be done is a thorough investigation into the operation and the findings of juries, and then a detailed evaluation of any alterations to the system. This enforces the argument that the process of selecting jurors is inadequate, and since it would be an impossibly complicated logistic exercise to choose jurors in any other way than how they are currently chosen, the only obvious way to eliminate this problem would be to eliminate juries altogether. Just as the law changes to reflect changes in the community, surely, it is argued, the system that dispenses this law should also change. However, this argument will forever be debated due to the diversity of opinions in any community.
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Acceptance Essays
