Toward more Meaningful Participation of Citizens in Criminal Trials

The important stride toward a more democratized criminal justice system is citizens’ participation in criminal trials. As a accomplishment of the stride, the system adopted a modified jury system in criminal trial through enacting the Act on Citizen Participation in Criminal Trial in 2007. However, the practice of pilot project revealed that the system does not fully fulfill the promise to enhance transparency and fairness in criminal trial through participation of citizen in the procedures. The initial problem is that the jury trial has not been opened to the extent of what people expects. In order to vitalize the jury trial, it would be better practice that cases in certain criminal categories should be subject to jury trial in priority, in which the defendant may request bench trial to court. The current jury trial has another hinderance in terms of quality which warrants meaningful participation of citizen. Unanimous verdicts should not be overruled by professional judges, though a verdict made by simple majority can be overruled by professional reasoning. In addition, the procedure for decisions of guilt and imposition of sentence should be bifurcated, at least in capital trial. Without jury participation, if the appellate court reviews the case, it would be a totally new trial which does not consider the jury’s deliberation and opinion made in the former trial. Therefore, there should be reasonal limit to the court review in appellate stage composed of only judge.