Trials by Peers: The Ebb and Flow of the Criminal Jury in France and Belgium

The participation of lay jurors in criminal courts has known much ebb and flow both in France and in Belgium. These two countries belong to the civil law tradition, where juries are the exception rather than the rule in criminal trials, and they only exist in criminal cases, not civil cases. In spite of some similarities, there are substantial differences between the two countries, and their systems will be examined in turn. In France, the Cour d’assises itself was inherited from the French Revolution. Since a law of 1941, it is a mixed jury system, meaning that lay citizens sit together with professional judges, The Cour adjudicates severe crimes only, mostly rapes and murders. A pilot program extended lay participation to criminal courts beyond the Cour d’assises, but was stopped and resulted in the reduction of the number of lay citizens on the Cour d’assises. In Belgium, the institution of the criminal jury in the Cour d’assises is enshrined in the Belgian Constitution. Up until 2016, it functioned as a “true” jury, in the sense that only lay citizens sat on the jury, without the participation of professional judges. A 2016 reform allowed for the reclassification of crimes into lesser offenses within the competence of the criminal courts, with very few exceptions. Additionally, from February 2016 on, judges deliberate with lay citizens on the guilt of the accused. The paper will explain the reasons for these changes and evolution of the participation of lay citizens in the criminal jury in France and Belgium, and include a few remarks about the future for lay participation in these two countries, since there are several current proposals on the table, both in France and in Belgium

Strategic policy advice: group-based processes as a tool to support policymaking

This deliverable is about the group discussions (STAVE trials) that have been carried out in the partner countries of project PACHELBEL on various substantive policy issues in the field of sustainability. It focuses on the methods that have been used to interact with lay citizens in the STAVE groups, and on the feedback that has been provided to policy makers on findings from the groups. Building upon these elaborations, conclusions will be drawn as to STAVE as a policy tool. Furthermore, this deliverable provides key features of STAVE groups on a country-by-country basis

CONSUMING A PARTICIPATION POLICY: CAMBODIAN HEALTH COMMITTEES

Participatory decision making practices were introduced into the Cambodian health sector in the late 1990s by the international development community. These practices were consolidated into a government policy in 2003. The participation policy requires lay citizens and other community representatives to be involved in management committees for health centres. In this thesis I report my research to ascertain if a participation policy results in strong participation. I did an ethnographic study of seven health centres in regional Cambodia. I found that participation levels of all lay citizens and other community representatives in health centre management were very low – the committees were only established where an international NGO supported them. Where the committees were operational, they were not decision making bodies. Community representatives including lay citizens had low levels of participation partly because of poor process design and lack of policy institutionalisation. This context enabled international NGOs to dominate and manipulate the committees. They used committees as a forum to educate community leaders about health, mobilise leaders to promote health centres, and lobby the government for changes in health centre management. By drawing together and extending the work of others, I show how in Cambodia both the participation process used in the study area and the national participation policy became commodities that were consumed in the game of international development. International development actors produced, marketed, and “sold” participation policies and processes and, in return, offered an implicit promise of resources to the government. As a result, lay citizens and other community representatives in Cambodia were short-changed by the consumption of participation policies and processes, being left without meaningful involvement in government decision making

A Pragmatic Paradox Inherent in Expert Reports Addressed to Lay Citizens

This paper addresses a problem inherent in reporting as a mode of communication between experts and lay citizens. The potential utility of such reports is obvious, but we commonly encounter critically debilitating frustration as experts, trained to address and to be accountable to other experts, attempt to report to citizens engaged in public decision making with proper regard for their own autonomy. We may move toward some resolution to these frustrations if we better understand the obligations inherent in the ordinary communicative act of reporting, which by its nature involves a delegation of responsibility

The French Jury at a Crossroads

Since its inception, the French jury system has generated controversy and passionate argument. The jury originated at the time of the French Revolution as a potent symbol of democratic self-governance. Alternately praised and attacked by successive governments over two centuries, the jury became entrenched in the French justice system and in the French mind. Yet, in recent years, the French jury\u27s future has become the subject of intense political debate. This article provides an overview of historical changes to the French jury system, describing how it was transformed from an independent body of lay citizens into a mixed decisionmaking body of professional and lay judges. The article then turns to a discussion of recent developments, including the introduction of a unique jury court of appeals (the Cour d\u27assises d\u27appel); the reclassification of offenses so that they are no longer eligible to be tried by jury; and government proposals for change in the use of French lay citizens as legal decision makers. The article also considers the implications of Taxquet v. Belgium for the French jury system

The French Jury at a Crossroads

Since its inception, the French jury system has generated controversy and passionate argument. The jury originated at the time of the French Revolution as a potent symbol of democratic self-governance. Alternately praised and attacked by successive governments over two centuries, the jury became entrenched in the French justice system and in the French mind. Yet, in recent years, the French jury\u27s future has become the subject of intense political debate. This article provides an overview of historical changes to the French jury system, describing how it was transformed from an independent body of lay citizens into a mixed decisionmaking body of professional and lay judges. The article then turns to a discussion of recent developments, including the introduction of a unique jury court of appeals (the Cour d\u27assises d\u27appel); the reclassification of offenses so that they are no longer eligible to be tried by jury; and government proposals for change in the use of French lay citizens as legal decision makers. The article also considers the implications of Taxquet v. Belgium for the French jury system

A Follow-Up Study Of Former High School Students Entering Three Selected High Schools In 1946

It was the purpose of this investigation (1) to gain suggestions for improving the school; (2) to determine reasons why students left before or remained in school until graduation; (3) to determine characteristics of school drop-outs; (4) to compare occupational histories of drop-outs and graduates; and (5) to evaluate the technique of involving lay citizens in studying school problems

Evidences of lay people’s reasoning related to climate change: per country and cross country results

This deliverable is about lay citizens’ reasoning about sustainability, in particular environmental protection and climate change, in various consumption domains, and the relation of this reasoning to the day-to-day lives of the participants. It presents country and cross-country findings from all 18 STAVE trials conducted between May 2011 and February 2012 in all six PACHELBEL partner countries. Analyses demonstrate that participants in the STAVE trials predominantly display a clear awareness that citizen consumption as demonstrated in their everyday practices of energy use, mobility, waste etc. are strongly connected with issues of environmental sustainablility. The STAVE trials also demonstrated that to live sustainably is a daily challenge, and people are often not able to organize their everyday routines in an environmental-friendly manner. Frequently there is a gap between participants’ aspirations and their practical behaviours. Significantly, the group conversations enabled participants to become aware that the self-assessed soundness of their everyday lives in terms of sustainability was at variance from the actual impact of e.g. their energy use or or mobility practices

EXPERTS AND CITIZENS IN THE TIMES OF COVID-19: A DEWEYAN PERSPECTIVE

The aim of this paper is to spell out, based on John Dewey’s pragmatist approach to politics, an alternative to neoliberalism and populism that has the idea of epistemic cooperation between scientists and citizens at its core. In order to carry out this task, we will follow three steps. In the first section we show that neoliberalism and populism, despite their obvious differences, share a common premise, namely, the assumption that scientists and lay citizens have two fundamentally different, incompatible approaches to knowledge. From this background, each of them tends to absolutize the value of either scientific knowledge (neoliberalism) or citizens’ knowledge (populism), bringing each of them and society at large into serious trouble. In the second section, we present Dewey’s alternative to populism and neoliberalism. Pragmatism avoids separating and absolutizing any of the two poles by pointing to the continuity between science and ordinary inquiry. Drawing on the famous Dewey-Lippmann debate, we argue for the use of institutional imagination for figuring out institutional arrangements organizing the cooperation between scientists and lay citizens. In a final step, we explore particular ways in which scientific progress has been linked to citizens’ epistemic achievements, namely, through “politicization” of apparently value-neutral issues such as certain health issues. More concretely, we show that politicization of HIV has generated valuable knowledge for scientific research. Here we see how, apart from institutional innovations, social struggles themselves represents a valuable source of the deabsolutization of knowledge and the promotion of epistemic cooperation