SemperVigilat (@SemperVigilat)

@darrelnay Another eye-opening article by Peter Hitchens … “In countries without juries, the state can just put you in prison because it feels like it. It does not have to prove its case to any independent person. The whole nature of a country changes when it gets rid of juries. True jury trial — an independent jury sitting alone, required in all contested criminal cases and whose verdict cannot be overturned by a higher court — is incredibly rare elsewhere in the world. In my experience, most British people are amazed by how rare it is, when told. Democrats are complacent on the subject, and poor at defending this precious possession. Totalitarians and despots, by contrast, immediately recognise juries as their enemy and get rid of them. The Russian Bolsheviks abolished them as soon as they came to power in 1917. The last true juries in France were shut down by the Nazi occupation authorities in 1940. Even where juries survive, mostly in Anglosphere countries, the option of juryless trial is often available.” “But the worrying truth is that jury trial has fewer and fewer defenders, and more and more enemies. Without fierce resistance, it will simply be whittled away and we shall have, as so many other countries do, a strong state which can do what it likes with us. And the chances are that it will be a Left-wing strong state, more likely to use its powers to enforce its dogmas and limit speech than it is to be hard on actual crime. Defend the jury while you can.” https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12121533/PETER-HITCHENS-rape-cases-heard-without-juries-long-scrap-them.html In case you struggle with the first link … thanks again for this site Darrel 😉 https://archive.ph/2023.05.25-031217/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12121533/PETER-HITCHENS-rape-cases-heard-without-juries-long-scrap-them.html