Dutch Political Culture Reflected in the Mirror of the Jury

Abstract

Observers from Common Law countries are often appalled by what they take to be the essential features of Continental criminal procedure: its secluded, bureaucratic character and the fundamental asymmetry of the parties. These features make them think of the institution with the worst reputation in their own legal history, the Court of Star Chamber (remembered for political prosecutions in the 16th and 17th centuries); other associations that come to mind are Kafka, the Inquisition and modern totalitarian states. Dutch observers, on the other hand, are appalled at the idea of ordinary people sitting in judgment on important criminal cases and particularly at the primitive emotionalism and absence of professional training and discipline that in their view characterize the Common Law jury and especially its American variant. There is probably about as much truth and about as much preconception on each side. In this article, however, I examine only the Dutch objections to trial by jury, objections that were confirmed (in Dutch eyes) by the verdict in the O.J. Simpson criminal case.