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Why   Jury   System   is   superior   than   judge   system


    Contents
  1. What is judge system and Jury System?
  2. How judge system has weakened India : A specific example
  3. judge-lawyer nexus in judge system
  4. Nexuslessness : KEY difference Jury System creates over judge system
  5. Knowledge/information factor
  6. Summary

What is judge system and Jury System?

     In any nation, there will be disputes over many issues between two or more individuals, and if these disputes are NOT resolved by the state/nation in short time, the individuals will resolve to private retribution thereby causing a chaos. Such chaos could wreck the nation. So for stability, it becomes necessary for the citizenry to give judgements on these disputes, and use force to enforce that judgement.

     A nation consisting of lakhs and crores of citizens would have thousands and lakhs of disputes a year. It is NOT possible for every citizen to personally take interest in each of the these individual thousands and lakhs of disputes. A citizen can at best take interest in 1-2 disputes a month or year. Therefore, the citizenry has not much option, but to appoint some individuals, for each dispute and take their decision has almost final in most cases, and scrutinize (via appeal) them in some cases.

     So one of the procedure that a nation has to execute, implicitly or explicitly, is to choose individuals to give judgement on a perticular dispute. There are two broad systems depening on how individuals are chosen
  1. The Jury System : Given any dispute, 5-10-15 citizens are chosen at random from the voter list of all adult citizens in that district/state, and these citizens, called as Jurors, hear the arguments, examine the evidences, and give a verdict
  2. the judge system : some senior individuals in the state appoints some chosen individuals in a district and appointed as judges, who will have term for 2-4-more years. And these fixed small number of appointed individuals will resolve the disputes.
     Other systems, which use BOTH, random selection of citizenry as well as appointed individuals are basically simple combitions of Jury System and judge system. And there are many other factors, like size of Jury, qualifications, screening rules etc which make one Jury System differ from another. But fundamental difference between Jury System and judge system is : Jury System depends on a few randomly chosen citizens from ENTIRE population, and DIFFERENT Jurors are used for different cases; WHILE judge system uses same appointed individuals for almost all cases that would come.

     On the surface, this issue may look unimportant --- what difference does it make whether cases are decided by randomly chosen citizens or a fixed judges? But this trivial looking difference plays a huge role in the strengthening or weakening the nation.


How judge system has weakened India : A specific example

     Cosider a specific kind of crime --- street criminals (commonly called as Daadaa) collecting protection money from small shop-keepers etc every month, openly and fearlessly. There are places in US/Europe with high crimes, but nowhere can one see criminals opnely extorting money from shop-keepers.

     There are many differential reasons for this. One of the factor why career crime is rampant in India, and less seen in West is the that India uses judge system, while the West uses Jury System. The judge system makes India's courts very nexused, while the Jury System has drastically reduced the nexusproneness in Western courts.

     Lets see how Jury System reduces the nexusproneness in Western Courts. Consider a mid-level career criminal with a gang of 50-100 criminals. He may be operating in some 5-10 areas. Now to sustain their operations, he and his gang members would need to pay monthly bribes to many MLAs, MPs, police officers, other officers, government lawyers, judges etc and would also need money to hire lawyers, mercinaries etc on time to time basis. All this, means a monthly FIXED COST of lakhs of rupees. Now such career criminal CAN NOT always find 5-10 victims that would cover all the costs and give profits every month. So almost always, a gang of career criminals has to victimise 100s of victims a month.

     In short, a career criminal and his gang-member has to commit 100s of crime a month. Out of so many crimes, some 20-30 of victims would end up filing complain in the courts. This would generate some 300-400 court cases per year.

     Now this is where judge system and Jury System would create difference in combating career crimes.

Career criminal in judge system Career criminal in Jury System
  • In the judge system, these 300-400 cases will go to just 5-10 judges, who have a term of 2-4 years in their areas.

  • So in order to delay the case (to frustrate the complainers/witnesses) or get outright aquittals, the gang leader has to cultivate nexuses with ONLY 5-10 judges.

  • He cultivates nexuses with 5-10 judges, and bingo ... he can manage an acquital/delay in 99% cases.

  • In the Jury System, EACH case goes to 12-15 DIFFERENT Jurors, randomly chosen from the district.

  • So to get acquitals in 300-400 cases a year, the gang leader will need to cultivate nexuses with 3000-5000 Jurors a year.

  • Long delay in Jury Trials are rare as each Jury is given ONLY one case, hearings are from 11am to 4pm on one and only one case, and mostly next date is next day.

  • so managing acquitals in even 10%-20% cases is next to impossible, much much harder than it is in judge system



    •      IOW, since a large number of cases in Indian courts are resolved by a small number of individuals (i.e. judges) the career criminal who have cultuvated nexuses with are having a field day. While West uses a very large number of individuals to resolve court cases, which makes establishing nexuses in a larger number of cases difficult.

    judge-lawyer nexus in judge system

         That was about judge-criminal nexus. The courts in India are sprawling with judge-lawyer nexuses. How does judge-lawyer nexus come into existance?

    judge-lawyer nexus No Jury-lawyer nexus
  • Say 3-5 senior lawyers have 10-20 junior lawyers working for them. Say they are togather taking 200-400 cases a year in a district

  • Most of these cases would to same 10-20 judges posted in that district.

  • Within 3-6 months these lawyers can cultivate nexuses with these 10-20 judges.

  • No one in Western courts has even seen Juror-lawyer nexus. It simply cant exist as ...

  • the 3-5 senior lawyers, who are taking 200-400 cases a year will end up facing 2000-5000 Jurors a year

  • there is no time to cultivate nexuses with even 5% of them.



    • Putting it other way
    When a lawyer makes a nexus with a judge during the trial of a case, that nexus with that judge will be CERTAINLY useful to that lawyer in ALL his cases which will come up before that judge. Even if a lawyer manages to form nexuses with say 7-8 out of 12 Jurors during the trial of a case, those nexus with those Jurors will be of NO USE at all in ALL other case of that lawyer, as Jurors change with each and every trial.

    Nexuslessness : KEY difference Jury System creates over judge system

         I will re-explain the difference Jury System creates.
    1. There are 12 DIFFERENT Jurors for each case, and NO citizen is allowed to sit in Jury for more than once in say 5-10 years. (The judge's role is to guide the Jurors, not to decide the guilt.)

    2. So in the West, say there are 5000 cases a year in a district, the verdict is given by 50000 to 60000 Jurors. Where as in judge system, these 5000 verdicts will be given by mere 20-50 judges.

    3. Lets look at it another way. Say a judge gives say 100 verdicts a year and say a judge's career is 30 years long. So one individual, the judge, decides 3000 cases. Whereas, in The Jury System, EACH case goes to 10-15 DIFFERENT Jurors. So the judgements in these 3000 cases will come from 30000 to 40000 DIFFERENT Jurors.

    4. So the number of 'decision makers' in Jury System is much much larger. The number of decision makers in courts go up by not just 10-12-15 times, but almost 20000 to 40000 times higher.

         How does this make courts of West less nexusprone? While it is indeed possible to make nexuses with 7-10 out of 12 Jurors and get a favorable verdict, it is NOT possible for a lawyer or a career criminal to make nexuses with 1000 out of 2000 Jurors. Basically, in a district's courts, when number of decision makers are small, such as just 20-50, it is possible for a lawyer or a career criminal to cultivate nexuses with them. But when number of decision makers are large, as large as 50000-60000, it is next to impossible for a career criminal or a lawyer to cultivate a nexuses with many of them.

    [Note :
         The Jury System is the KEY reason why Courts in US are much less nexused than courts in India. But it is NOT the only reason. Following are the OTHER additional reasons why US Courts are less nexused than Courts in India
    1. Grand Jury System : The public prosecutors in US are accountable to Grand Jury consisting of some 25-30 citizens. They are semi-randomly chosen from citizenry; term is 6 months to 1 year, and repeatations are NOT allowed. This makes Grand Jury a fairly less nexusprone body.

    2. The public prosecuors in most states/district are elected. When not elected, they are appointed by PM/CM/Mayor, and appointment needs approval of majority of MPs/MLAs/Panchayat-Members. Where as in India, PPs in ALL districts are appointed by Law Ministers. The procedure is more nexus-prone compared to election procedure.

    3. The police chief in most districts in US is elected. This makes police chiefs more responsible to citizenry and less nexused than appointed police chiefs.

    4. The judges in many states/districts in US are elected. Election is less nexusprone procedure than appointment. When not elected, judges are appointed by PM/CM and appointment needs approval of majority of MLAs/MPs. This procedure is far less nexusprone than procedure used in India, where judges appoint judges without any public debate.

    end of Note]

    Knowledge/information factor

    One objection often cited by anti-Jury pro-judge individuals is that Jurors have less knowledge/information about the law. This objection is partly incorrect --- BOTH jurors and judges have SAME knowledge/information about basic concepts of justice, fairness, right/wrong etc. The ONLY difference is that judges have more TECHNICAL knowledge about specific details. eg both judges and Jurors know that violence is crime, crime done with specific monetary motive is more henious than spotaneous violence etc. But Jurors may or may not be aware of specific details like such and such act carries maximum punishment of say 5 years or 7 years or 6 months and so forth. Such specific details are easy to grasp and apply.

    The pro-judge anti-Jury people do not mention the other point --- i.e. judges progressively get more and more nexused. A newly appointed young Magistrate is relatively nexusless, and so he is bold, upright, straight forward and fair. But as days go, he cultivates more and more nexuses with lawyers, criminals, other judges, officers, Ministers, MLAs, local riches etc. Whereas each Jury is DIFFERENT and so un-nexused.

    IMO, decisions from un-nexused Jurors will have more integrity and fairness than decisions of nexused judges, no matter how much more knowledgeable and informed they might be. Therefor, I prefer Jury System over judge system.


    How to bring Jury System in India ?

    The question is for all those, but ONLY those, who believe that decisions of inhererently ununexused Jurors will be better than decisions of the fixed permanent judges, who are nexusprone and often nexused. To those who believe that judge system is better than Jury System, this is a non-question.

    Now following is are the steps I suggest using which citizens in India can expel the judges and bring Jurors onboard.
    1. First citizens should get LM.01-03 passed in Panchayats, Assembly and Parliament. These procedures would reduce citizens dependence on MLAs/MPs etc in getting Jury related laws passed in Panchayats, Assembly and Parliament.
    2. Next, citizens should pass a law in Parliament using LM.03, which would give full powers the State Legislatures to draft the laws related with appointments of judges in all courts which would takes cases on issues which are State subjects. The Central government would ONLY manage the cases that are related with Central subjects.
    3. Next, citizens should pass a law in Assemblies using LM.02, which would give full powers the Districts to draft the laws related with appointments of judges in Lower Courts, whose power is restricted to maximum punishment of 3 years and fine of Rs 100,000, and would also empower Districts to have full control over administration of such LCs.
    4. Using LM.03, citizens can expel all appointed judges in SC and ensure that SCs has ONLY 10 judges of which all 10 are DIRECTLY elected by citizens of India. And using LM.03, citizens can pass a law that would create Jury System in Supreme Court of India.
    5. Using LM.02, citizens can expel all appointed judges in HC and ensure that HCs has ONLY 10 judges of which all 10 are DIRECTLY elected by citizens of the State. And using LM.02, citizens can pass a law that would create Jury System in High Courts of States
    6. Using LM.03, citizens can expel all appointed judges in LCs and ensure that LCs judges get DIRECTLY elected by citizens of the District. And using LM.01, citizens can pass a law that would create Jury System in Lower Courts.
    Basically, 1st step redeuces the need to convince MLAs who are hostile to Jury System due to a mutual understainding that whereby judges will not hurt MLAs and MLAs will not hurt the judges. The second step will allow each state to decide whether they want judge system or Jury System, and how they want to manage their State courts. The third steps takes it down to district level --- for all crimes in which maximum punishment is below 3 years. Now citizens of districts are on their own --- some district may decide to continue as is with appointed judges, some may opt for elected judges with no Jury, some district may opt for elected judges with Jury System and so forth.

    This may reduce uniformity, but DOES NOT result into discrimination, as inside a court, all citizens are treated equally. Such uniformity does not exist even today, as some laws under state subjects vary from state to state. Also, since Criminal Procedure Code is joint subject in India, CrPC in different states does vary. Also, since the procedures to appoint judgfes in lower courts is left to HC chief judges, they vary from State to State. So we do NOT have uniformity today. So my proposed setup DOES NOT destroy uniformity, as we dont have uniformity anyway.

    To enact Jury based procedures in India, I have proposed following procedures :
    1. CT.01 - Jury for/against an employee staff of Municipality
    2. CT.02 - Jury for/against Junior Policemen
    3. CT.03 - Jury for/against State Govt officers related to taxation
    4. CT.04 - Jury for/against State Govt officers related taxation
    5. CT.05 - Jury in courts under Executive such as court of Executive Magistrate, District Magistrate, SSRD etc)
    6. CT.06 - Jury in Lower Courts
    7. CT.07 - Jury in High Court
    8. CT.08 - Jury in Supreme Court

    Summary

    The officers and private citizens in India are supervised by judges who have a tenure of 15-30 years and a term of 2-3 years in a given court. Such a long tenure and term is quite a long time for criminals/lawyers and judges to establish nexuses amongst themselves and benefit at the cost of nation. We, the commons of India, MUST abandon this system for good. Instead, we MUST use a rotating group of 5-10-15 citizens, chosen at random from citizenry to decide upon a case. Unless we use this Jury System in departmental inquiries, quasi-courts and courts, the problem of judge-criminal nexus and judge-lawyer nexus will remain in our courts and will contitue to corrode the nation. Earlier we switch to Jury System, better it is for India.