In order to decide whether or not trial by jury should or should not be abolished, we need to know what it is that we are dealing with and what viable alternative or alternatives there are to it.

The first 200 words of this essay...

In order to decide whether or not trial by jury should or should not be abolished, we need to know what it is that we are dealing with and what viable alternative or alternatives there are to it.

I will take a brief look at the history of the jury trial. I will examine the function of the jury; look at what is good and bad about the jury system.

Finally I will examine the proposed alternatives to trial by jury that are currently in fashion.

The jury system first arrived in Britain after the Norman Conquest. The earliest jury was a body of neighbours summoned by a public officer to give oath as answer to some question1. The sworn inquest was used to enable the recognition on oath of a number of upstanding members of the community to testify to facts which they had personal knowledge. Those called were not judges of fact, but witnesses.

By the end of the twelfth century, a person accused of a crime could, on payment obtain the right to obtain a trial by jury. (I will return to this point later when I look at the government's proposals to