Small suggestion: lay judges

For the Jury Trial policy, the current options are: in exceptional cases, in serious cases, if requested, widespread, universal.

For those who don’t know, some countries such as Germany or Japan use lay judges: citizens who sit alongside professional judges and together with them decide on a criminal case. There usually are more lay judges than professional judges in such cases, to give the lay judges the majority. (Personally I think it is a far more sensible system than giving a random group of citizens the power to decide on a verdict, without any guidance, and often without the possibility to appeal, as happens with regular juries.)

For the policy I’m thinking the option could be in between “in exceptional cases” and “in serious cases”. If that means too many categories, maybe “if requested” could be removed, since a system where people can request it could fall under both “in serious cases” and “widespread”.

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I have done lay judge service in Sweden. It would be an interesting alternative to jury service. Potentially, they could be different levels of the same slider.

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After making Democracy less easy to maximize, it would be great to see this policy in my opinion.

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