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Comment by delinka | Hacker News Reader

The phrase "...beyond a reasonable doubt" comes to mind. I would hope a jury involved in such a case would be more reasonable about actual hard evidence, but I hear that juries are selected for emotionality and not rationality. I would hope that the judge in such a case would be more reasonable and demand some actual evidence.

Such is the case in a fearful populace, and one that demands vengeance over justice. I appears as though something bad happened, so someone must pay and ... here's a magic forumla with missing variables that says you might have done it so ... GUILTY.

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> I hear that juries are selected for emotionality and not rationality

The case the parent was talking about took place in the Netherlands. I don't think they even use juries in the Netherlands (though I could be wrong about that).

Even in the UK -- the jurisdiction the article is about -- juries are purely random. We don't do the American practice of lawyers from both sides being able to reject jurors for their own reasons (as opposed to an actual good reason like their knowing the defendant, and the judge makes the decision on that).

Correct, no juries in the Netherlands.

wow. Err, what may I ask do you use?

Civil law systems by and large do not use trial by jury. The judge (or judges) pronounces verdict.

The Netherlands is it seems one of the few democracies that do not use juries for any trials. Civil or not. The UK certainly has judge only civil trials (commercial law is basically a way for two barristers and a judge to get paid for sitting and talking for two months)

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2008/04/judge_calls_fo...

Most democratic countries use civil law, actually, though I don't think that's particularly relevant. There's a much stronger correlation between language and system of law than there is between form of government and system of law. Note the similarity between [0] and [1], and the complete lack thereof between [1] and [2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anglospeak%28800px%29.png

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LegalSystemsOfTheWorldMap...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Democracy_Index_2011.png

What common law countries call a "civil case" is not the same was what civil law countries call "a case". It's confusing.

As for the distribution of languages and laws, it's largely due to history. Civil/code jurisdictions show the extent of the former Roman empire and later the influence of Napoleonic Code. Common law countries are almost universally within the Anglosphere and have a common legal heritage commencing in the 1066 Norman Conquest.

Well, it seems to me that many countries do have some sort of a jury system but they use it rarely or not at all. Also, there may be laymen involved (for instance, Sweden and Finland may have two lay judges plus one professional one) but those don't really count as juries.

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