Paul Goble
Staunton, Sept. 24 – Russian officials have never liked the fact that jury trials when they take place do not find the accused guilty in approximately a third of the cases while those in which the judge decides return such not guilty verdicts only once in approximately every 500 cases.
Abolishing jury trials would spark outrage among many Russians and the international community, and so the Kremlin has adopted a different strategy: not only restricting the kinds of cases that can go before a jury but now changing jury trials in ways that effectively geld them (echofm.online/news/verhovnyj-sud-predlozhil-sokratit-chislo-prisyazhnyh-i-vklyuchit-sudyu-v-ih-kollegiyu).
The Russian Supreme Court has proposed a reform which it says will make the system fairer, retaining jury trials in principle but reducing the number of jurors in all cases and including the presiding judge among them when they come to decide upon their verdicts, something that will effectively geld them and points to their ultimate demise in Russia.
The proposed reform also calls for allowing people over 65 to serve on juries, an age group most likely to defer to the authorities, and for reducing the number of bases for appellate courts to set aside findings of non-guilty, something intended to take some of the sting out of the other changes.
Rights activists say that if the reform goes through, it will further reduce the role of juries and may ultimately render them totally ineffective as the last line of defense for those accused by the government of committing crimes. (For a discussion of these objections, see business-gazeta.ru/article/711971.)
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