ABSTRACT
As a result of the arrival of large numbers of labour migrants of non-European origin during the latter half of the twentieth century, British society, and English society in particular, has become markedly more plural in ethnic, religious and linguistic terms. Logic suggests that in the absence of active and informed efforts to address challenges of these kinds, there is a very real prospect that the delivery of justice will begin to turn into a random lottery as far as members of minority groups are concerned. The internal diversities which such republican assumptions sought to address, the ever-growing scale of global migration has made a nonsense of such hopes and expectations. ‘A jury of one’s peers’ meant just that: a jury composed of leading members of the local community, such that personal acquaintance with the litigants was regarded as grounds for inclusion in — rather than disbarment from — its membership.
