ABSTRACT
The European Jury For the European liberals, just like their British counterparts, the jury was a weapon of political enfranchisement. ‘Liberty,’ remarked a French deputy to the Revolutionary Assembly, ‘and that sacred institution invariably go hand in hand’ (cited in Esmein 1914, p.445) and the creation of juries across Europe in the decades following the French Revolution can be taken as a barometer of the progress of political liberalism. Beginning with France in 1789, juries were established in Spain in 1820, Portugal in 1830, Germany in 1848, Italy in 1860 and Russia in 1864 (Vidmar 2000b, pp.428-32).
