en/judicial/finland/lay-judges.txt
2005-11-16
The Finnish lay judge system
This essay is part of my Finnish criminal court series. See the introductory essay for more information and an overview of the Finnish criminal court system.
There are no juries in Finnish criminal courts. Instead, there are lay judges, trusted lay people who actively take part in deciding criminal cases and can in some cases completely override the legally trained judge's opinion.
Every four years, municipal elections are held. Most importantly, tens of thousands of people seek a seat in the local municipal council, and most of them don't get one. But a lot of them get committee seats: seats in specialty committees that report to the municipality board, which then reports to the council. Shortly after new year, a couple of months after a municipal election, these seats are shuffled and refilled.
Amongst all this hoobla, the councillors also get to make a decision which may seem like a triviality when the choice is made but actually is a fairly big thing: the new municipal council must select a number of lay judges to represent the people of that municipality in the local district court.
Typically, the selection is drafted by the same process as the committee seats are handed out. The municipality's lay judge seats are proportionally handed out to the parties represented in the municipal council. Those seats then take part in the grand game of "gimme gimme" where the candidates of the previous elections compete for the choiciest seats. In this game, a lay judge seat is not particularly choicy, for some odd reason (except to people who have been one before).
Each party eventually submits a list of people, and those lists are combined, and the resulting list is approved by the council and submitted to the district court, which eventually sends those people a welcome note and an invitation to lay judge training. By the end of March, new lay judges have been sworn in and are sitting on the bench approximately once a month each.
The lay judge's office is apolitical and independent of any outside influence, as befits a judge, even though the holders of the office are selected (in practice) from active local politicians and through a political process. Once the list of names has reached the district court, the role of the municipality ends, and the seat is a state function, not a municipal one.
In many respects, a lay judge is equivalent to a regular district court judge. However, there are some important differences. The district court is never judicially empowered without a legally qualified presiding judge, in other words, a lay judge can never preside over a trial. Also, lay judges are not employed by the court; they do, however, get compensated for their time and income loss because of the service.
When a panel of judges containing lay judges deliberate on a criminal case, the lay judges have as much formal power, individually, as the legally trained judge(s) present. Two lay judges, when agreeing, can, in some cases, trump the legally trained judge.
In one respect the lay judges and the legally trained judges are perfectly similar. Both give the same oath (or the equivalent solemn affirmation) before their first case; lay judges in a session of the district court, and the legally trained judges in a session of an apellate court.
The Judge's Oath
I, (insert name), do promise and swear by God and His Holy Gospels that to the best of my understanding and conscience I wish to and shall in all judgments render justice to poor and rich alike and render judgment in accordance with the laws and lawful rules of God and country: I shall never, under any pretext, pervert the law nor promote injustice because of kinship, relationship, friendship, envy, hatred or fear, or for the sake of gifts or presents or other reasons, nor shall I find an innocent person guilty or a guilty person innocent. Furthermore, I shall not, before pronouncing a judgment or thereafter, reveal to the parties or to anyone else anything about the deliberations that the Court has held behind closed doors. All of this I wish to and shall fulfil faithfully, honestly and as an earnest judge, without deceit and intrigue, so help me God, in body and mind.
(Unofficial translation published by the Ministry of Justice.)
The Judge's solemn affirmation uses the same formula but replaces the religious references with references to one's conscience and honor. I gave my judge's solemn affirmation in a session of the Jyväskylä distrit court on the 15th of March, 2005.
Even though the process of selecting lay judges seems rather unproductive, my experience suggests that the people selected deserve the position. If they didn't when they were selected, they grew to the part (unless they had criminal history; those people are promptly discharged). Personally, I believe that the long service expected of a lay judge (at least four years, but many spend decades) is a huge asset: lay judges are not legally trained but they are generally experienced in their role.
The formal qualifications for lay judges are age (25–63 at the date of last appointment), Finnish citizenship, being fully empowered (not in bankrupcy or under guardianship) and fitness to the position (essentially, good reputation, no criminal history etc.). Specifically unqualified are people having some other role in the judicial process (legally trained judges, police officers, etc.).
People having served exceptionally well (and usually fairly long) as lay judges are eligible to receive the honorary title of herastuomari (literally, 'district court judge' in archaic language, but usually translated as 'senior lay judge').
There are no lay judges in apellate courts or in the supreme court.
22:31 - /en/judicial/finland - 6 comments
