This essay will critically analyse Anabelle Lever’s paper Treating People as Rulers.

The essay discusses whether a commitment to democratic priciples requires more inclusive and descriptively respresentiative judicial bodies. In Treating People as Rulers, Anabelle Lever argues that democracy is not only about voting, but ensuring people a right to rule, and therefore to make collectively binding judgements that are reflective of the community. The use of lay juries manifests the fact that people are able to participate in the administration of justice which is as much a part of government as the legislature or administration. Such democratic appeal of juries is undermined when the procedures of jury selection, particularly in England and Wales, fails to adequately incorporate members of racial minority. People to whom the power to rule is usually ascribed should also be judged by those who normally lack such power. In other words, the ethics of jury selection must be inconsistent with democratic norms of equality and respect.

But despite the absence of racial representation, jury decisions in England and Wales were found to be fair, effective and efficient, raising no issue of injustice either to the minority defendants and victims of crime. Juries, after all, determine the guilt or innocence of certain individuals, and should be accounted for their judicial virtues of reasoning and judgement.

Questions to be considered are;

–          Are any differences between the legislative and the judicial function?

–          Does getting the right answer matter more in one than the other?

–          Is the balance between epistemic and participatory aspects different in the two cases?

–          If juries are entirely about getting right answers, why should they be in any way descriptively representative of the population?

Some of the useful literatures are;

Lever, Annabelle (2015). ‘Democracy, Epistemology and the Problem of All-White Juries’, Journal of Applied Philosphy 34(4): pp.541-556

Bellamy, Richard and Parau, Christina E. (2013). ‘Introduction: Democracy, Courts and the Dilemma of Representation’, Journal of Representative Democracy 49(3): pp.255-266

Poama, Andrei (2013). ‘Whiter Equality? Securing the Lay Citizen’s Place Inside the Criminal Justice System’, Swiss Political Science Review 19(4): pp.472-491