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- Title
Commentary: Dispatches from the Front: Lay Participation in Legal Processes and the Development of Democracy.
- Authors
Landsman, Stephan
- Abstract
The article provides valuable information about the struggle over the development of democratic institutions in nations that have, in recent decades, undertaken the task of freeing themselves from totalitarian pasts. Lay participation is not, in itself, a new phenomenon or a necessarily democratic institution in these societies. Worldwide experience suggests that such transitions are neither smooth nor easy. It is interesting to note that in Russia, Croatia and Spain, the desire for democracy appears to have reached into the justice systems and lent new significance to pre-existing mechanisms providing for lay participation. Bolsheviks introduced lay assessors into Russian legal system. The article tells people that lay participation has, in one way or another, come to be viewed as an expression of the democratic impulse in the society. It should be noted that these institutions are not the only ones being used to "democratize" justice in these countries.
- Subjects
RUSSIA; CROATIA; SPAIN; SOCIAL institutions; TOTALITARIANISM; NATIONAL socialism; DEMOCRACY; SOCIAL justice
- Publication
Law & Policy, 2003, Vol 25, Issue 2, p173
- ISSN
0265-8240
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1046/j.1467-9930.2003.00145.x