Implementation of criminal justice by jury courts in Ukraine: current state and development prospects

Oleksiy LESKIV; Olena KOVALCHUK

Annotation. The article examines the problematic issues of the implementation of the institution of the jury trial in Ukraine, the current state of the implementation of criminal justice by the jury trial, the reasons for the ineffectiveness of the domestic legislative mechanism of the activity of the jury trial, ways of improving the national legal system within the limits of the implementation of justice by the jury trial, and the possibility of implementing foreign experience in reforming the judicial system in Ukraine.

The foreign experience of the jury trial was analyzed, the peculiarities of the Anglo-American and European jury trial models were considered, and the experience of the United States of America was emphasized.

Taking into account the need to build an effective jury court in Ukraine, it is proposed: to make a transition from the continental to the classic jury court model, including separating jurors from professional judges and making them independent in passing a verdict on the guilt or innocence of a person; to reduce the number of professional judges during the consideration of criminal proceedings by a jury from two to one, but to increase the number of jurors on the model of the US petit jury to 6-12 people; by increasing the list of criminal offenses that can be considered by a jury; reduce the minimum age from which you can become a juror; to form juror lists on the basis of a competition followed by candidates taking a course in legal studies; create appropriate conditions for the protection of jurors and compliance with their independence; develop mechanisms for appealing clearly illegal jury decisions; to provide coverage of the activity of the jury court in the mass media in order to popularize it.

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