Lay judge
A lay judge, sometimes called a lay assessor, is a person assisting a judge in a trial. Lay judges are used in some civil law jurisdictions. Lay judges are appointed volunteers and often require some legal instruction. However, they are not permanent officers. They attend proceedings about once a month, and often receive only nominal or "costs covered" pay. Lay judges are usually used when the country does not have juries. Lay judges may be randomly selected for a single trial, or politically appointed. In the latter case they may usually not be rejected by the prosecution, the defense, or the permanent judges. Lay judges are similar to magistrates of England and Wales, but magistrates sit about twice as often.
In different countries
Austria
In criminal proceedings, lay judges sit alongside professional judges on cases carrying a maximum punishment of more than five years, as well as for political crimes. Lay judges are also used in labor, social, and commercial law disputes.Brazil
In Brazil, Law Nº 9.099/1995 created the "Juizados Especiais", with restricted jurisdiction to settle small claims and/or criminal misdemeanors. In this procedure, lay judges act under supervision of judges to preside over the court as well as to act as conciliators. Their decisions, called "pareceres", are submitted to the judge for homologation before it has any effects on the parties. According to the law, lay judges must be selected among lawyers with more than 5 years of experience.Finland
In Finland, two lay judges are called in for serious or complicated cases in district courts, to accompany a professional, legally trained judge. The professional judge is the chair of the panel, but otherwise the judges have equal rights. The aim is to introduce their "common sense of justice" into the process. Simpler cases are handled by one or three professional judges, and all Appeals Court, Supreme Court and administrative court judges are necessarily professional.Lay judges are appointed by local municipal councils, in practice by negotiations between political parties, from among volunteers. Each municipality elects a number of lay judges depending on its size, with two as the minimum. The minimum qualifications are Finnish citizenship, full citizenship rights, 25–64 years of age when elected, and general suitability for the position. Lay judges must resign at the age of 68 at the latest. Officials of the judicial, law enforcement or corrections authorities, such as prosecutors, attorneys, policemen, distrainers or customs officers, may not be elected as lay judges.
New legislation has limited the role of lay judges. They are employed only in serious criminal cases, which comprised 6% of cases in 2013, while 29% of cases were handled in writing and 65% with a single professional judge. Almost all cases concerning homicide, child molestation and sabotage are handled by lay judges. Formerly they always sat in, for instance, family law proceedings. On average, lay judges sit in session for 12 days a year, or 20 days at maximum.
Germany
Except for most crimes for which the trier of fact is a single professional judge, and serious political crimes which are tried before a panel of professional judges, in the judiciary of Germany all charges are tried before mixed tribunals on which lay judges sit side by side with professional judges. Section 263 of the German Code of Criminal Procedure requires a two-thirds majority for most decisions unfavorable to the defendant; denial of probation by simple majority is an important exception. In most cases lay judges do not directly examine documents before the court or have access to the case file.The only statutory criterion is that lay judges must be citizens who have not been convicted of, or been under investigation for, a serious crime. However, people "ought not" to be chosen if they are under 25 years old or over 70 years old, very high government officials, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, policemen, ministers, or priests, or do not live in the community at the time of selection, or have been a lay judge in the past two terms. In addition, people may refuse to serve if they are over 65 years old, members of the federal or state legislatures, doctors, nurses, druggists if working alone, or housewives if overburdened, or have served as a lay judge in the preceding term. Applications can be made to become a lay judge by interested citizens, but this does not occur often, and welfare institutions, sports clubs, financial and health insurance institutions, trade unions, industrial companies and other public authorities are primarily called upon to nominate candidates. It appears that motivation includes social responsibility, image cultivation, advertising, and participation in fine allocation.
Lay judges are selected by a selection committee from lists that are approved by municipal councils with a two-thirds majority of attending local councilors. The selection committee consists of a judge from the Amtsgericht, a representative of the state government, and ten "trusted citizens" who are also elected by two-thirds of the municipal council, and selects from the list of candidates the number needed to staff the various tribunals. The practice was similar in East Germany.
Lay judges have historically been predominantly middle-aged men from middle-class backgrounds, largely due to a selection procedure in which personal acquaintance, political affiliation and occupation all play an important role. A study conducted in 1969 found that, of the lay judges in its sample, approximately 25% were civil service employees, compared to only about 12% being blue-collar workers. A study published in 2009 put this number at 27% civil service employees versus 8% of the general population, and noted the relatively high numbers of housewives, the relatively low number of private sector employees, and relative old age of lay judges.
Greece
Under the Constitution of Greece and the Code of Criminal Procedure, all felonies except for a select few felonies of special nature must be tried by a "Mixed Jury Court" composed of three professional judges including the President of the Court and four lay judges.Hungary
The Fundamental Law of Hungary states that "non-professional judges shall also participate in the administration of justice in the casesand ways specified in an Act." In these cases, the court adjudicates in a panel which is composed of 1 professional judge and 2 lay judges or 2 professional judges and 3 lay judges. Lay judges are elected by city councils and can be Hungarian citizens between the age of 30 and 70 years who have not been convicted.
Israel
While all criminal cases in Israel are tried by professional judges without any lay participation, cases in the Labor Courts of Israel, which hear labor disputes and cases involving Israel's social security system, are heard by professional judges sitting alongside lay judges. Cases in the Regional Labor Courts are heard by a single professional judge alongside two lay judges, one of whom has experience in the labor sector and another with experience in management, while appeals to the National Labor Court, which hears appeals from the Regional Labor Courts, are heard by three professional judges alongside a lay judge from the labor side and a lay judge from the management side. Lay judges in Israeli labor courts are appointed by the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Labor, and serve for a three-year period. They have equal voting power to the professional judges.The military court system of the Israel Defense Forces also employs officers as lay judges. Hearings in district military courts are generally presided over by a professional military judge and two officers who serve in units based in the court's regional district who generally do not have a legal background. Hearings in the Military Court of Appeals, the supreme military court of Israel, are generally presided over by two professional judges and one officer acting as a lay judge.
Japan
A system for trial by jury was first introduced in 1923 under Prime Minister Katō Tomosaburō's administration. Although the system generated relatively high acquittal rates, it was rarely used, in part because it required defendants to give up their rights to appeal the factual determinations made. The system lapsed by the end of World War II. In 2009, as a part of a larger judicial reform project, laws came into force to introduce citizen participation in certain criminal trials by introducing lay judges. Lay judges comprise the majority of the judicial panel. They do not form a jury separate from the judges, as in a common law system, but participate in the trial as inquisitorial judges in accordance with the civil law legal tradition. They actively analyze and investigate evidence presented by the defense and prosecution.Norway
In the district courts of Norway, lay judges sit alongside professional judges in mixed courts in most cases. In most cases, two lay judges sit alongside one professional judge. The court leader may decree that a case have three lay judges sitting alongside two professional judges if its workload is particularly large or if there are other significant reasons. Decisions are made by simple majority.Lay judges also serve in criminal cases in the appellate courts. From 1. January 2018, the Court of Appeal is convened with two professional- and five lay judges. Before 1. January 2018, if the crime carried a maximum sentence of six years imprisonment or more, the lay judges were replaced with a jury. The jury was chosen from the same list as the lay judges, meaning that lay judges in the appellate courts also served as jurors. If the jury found the defendant guilty, the jury spokesperson, and three other jurors selected at random, served as lay judges during the sentencing. In the few cases where a professional judges overturn the jury's verdict, regardless of whether the original verdict was one of guilt or innocence, the case was retried with three professional judges and four lay judges.
In the Supreme Court, there are no lay judges.
Lay judges are not totally representative of the population. Only 2.8% are under 30 years of age and 60% are 50 or more.