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Copping Out of Jury Duty
The grand court cases stemming from ethnic strife made the jury trials the highlight again. Three weeks ago, it proved impossible to find 18 jurors in St. Petersburg to probe into the murder of Vietnamese student, Vu Anh Tuân, beaten to death by drunken teenagers in October 2004. Another attempt to form a jury will be taken today. In late March, the jury called guilty none of the accused in killing Khursheda Sultonova, who was just nine years old in time of the murder. Now the burning question is whether the jury trial could pass awards on such cases at all if the whole society is suffering from xenophobia.
It is no secret that the Russians have a general distrust of judicial service. The last poll of Levada Center showed only 28 percent of respondents believed an ordinary man could count on justice, while 61 didn’t think so.
The jury trial enjoys higher reputation. Asked whether awards of the jury could be trusted more than sentences of the ordinary courts, 30 percent of the polled gave positive answers, said a survey of Public Opinion Fund. Still, as much as 21 percent of respondents answered negatively. The fame of the jury trial is dual. On the one hand, it is thought less corrupt, on the other hand, its softness triggers apprehension.
Past year, for instance, the jury ruled non-guilty in 18 percent of cases, while the ordinary courts had 3 percent, said Vyacheslav Lebedev, who chairs Supreme Court. The statistics of the Moscow City Court are even more illustrative - 26 percent of acquittal sentences passed by the jury trials vs. 0.35 percent of non-guilty verdicts awarded by professional judges. By the way, 43 percent of acquittal sentences of the jury were reversed later on.
But the real threat to jury trials is that individuals (78 percent of the polled) blankly deny becoming jurors. The analysts say the main reason is the unwillingness to assume responsibility and the general public and political passivity of the Russians.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 18, 2006
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