In Brazil, Law Nº 9.099/1995 created the "Juizados Especiais" (Special Petty Courts), with restricted jurisdiction to settle small claims (understood as those with a "lawsuit worth" lower than 40 times the country's minimum wage) and/or criminal misdemeanors (listed in the Executive Order Nº 3.688/1941).
lautamiehet) are called in for serious or complicated cases in district courts, to accompany a professional, legally trained judge.
Lay judges are appointed by local municipal councils, in practice by negotiations between political parties, from among volunteers.
Officials of the judicial, law enforcement or corrections authorities, such as prosecutors, attorneys, policemen, distrainers or customs officers, may not be elected as lay judges.
[4] Applications can be made to become a lay judge by interested citizens, but this does not occur often, and welfare institutions, sports clubs, financial and health insurance institutions, trade unions, industrial companies and other public authorities are primarily called upon to nominate candidates.
It appears that motivation includes social responsibility, image cultivation, advertising, and participation in fine allocation.
[7] Lay judges have historically been predominantly middle-aged men from middle-class backgrounds, largely due to a selection procedure in which personal acquaintance, political affiliation and occupation all play an important role.
[6][8] A study conducted in 1969 found that, of the lay judges in its sample, approximately 25% were civil service employees, compared to only about 12% being blue-collar workers.
The Fundamental Law of Hungary states that "non-professional judges shall also participate in the administration of justice in the cases and ways specified in an Act."
Lay judges are elected by city councils and can be Hungarian citizens between the age of 30 and 70 years who have not been convicted.
Although the system generated relatively high acquittal rates,[11] it was rarely used, in part because it required defendants to give up their rights to appeal the factual determinations made.
January 2018, if the crime carried a maximum sentence of six years imprisonment or more, the lay judges were replaced with a jury.
[16] In first- and second-tier Swedish courts, both in the general and the administrative hierarchy, politically appointed lay judges (nämndemän) sit alongside professional judges in district and appellate general and administrative courts, but decide virtually no civil cases.
President Tsai Ing-wen discussed the implementation of lay judges within the Taiwanese legal system in 2016, and later convened the National Conference on Judicial Reform, which met through 2017.
[23] Hauenstein's charter of 1442 secured the right to be tried in all cases by 24 fellow equals, and in Friburg the jury was composed of 30 citizens and councilors.
[24] The modern jury trial was first introduced in the Rhenish provinces in 1798, with a court consisting most commonly of 12 citizens (Bürger).
[23] The system whereby citizens were tried by their peers chosen from the entire community in open court was gradually superseded by an "engine of tyranny and oppression" in Germany in which the process of investigation was secret and life and liberty depended upon judges appointed by the state.
[24] The Frankfurt Constitution of the failed Revolutions of 1848 called for jury trials for "the more serious crimes and all political offenses",[22] but was never implemented.
An 1873 draft on criminal procedure produced by the Prussian Ministry of Justice proposed to abolish the jury and replace it with the mixed system, causing a significant political debate.
[33][34] In 1934, nomination of Jews and Communists as lay judges was forbidden, and selection was restricted to Nazi supporters.
[8] Nowadays, Schwurgericht appears as embodiment for three special task areas of the Große Strafkammer (Grand Penal Chamber) at a Landgericht (medium court level of a German federal state's jurisdiction), and again consists of three professional and two lay judges.
Its three competences are While a Große Strafkammer can usually decide before or at start of a trial to limit itself to two professional judges and two lay jurymen, it cannot do so if it has to function in the above-mentioned three cases.
Trial by jury was first introduced in the Russian Empire as a result of the Judicial reform of Alexander II in 1864, and abolished after the October Revolution in 1917.
[41] After a 1958 reform they were elected for 2 years at general meetings of colleagues at their place of work or residence, or at higher levels appointed by the soviet.
[44] Lay judges in the district and regional courts were traditionally appointed by the assembly of the relevant socio-political community.