It is the implementation of the common law Trial by Jury through which "the people rule," which forms and defines democracy. Within the society which is democratic, the assembly (congress, senate, parliament, etc.) remains of inferior authority to the decisions of juries in Trial by Jury.

In parliamentary processes everywhere, assemblage embodies the initial, preliminary procedure of government, wherein proposal, debate and voting, frame measures and ‘enact’ laws. Trial by Jury is the decisive, superior stage: citizen-jurors are sovereign to judge the laws and causes in all their aspects, to decide whether, and if so, how, to give effect to their execution.

THIS CASE RULING EXEMPLIFIES DEMOCRACY AT WORK:

Neither in the United States, Britain, Eire, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, nor in all of Europe have legislatures ever been invested by the People with authority to remove the universal Right of the accused to the Trial by Jury of peers for any charge or offence whatever, however serious or trivial, nor to impair the powers, to change the oaths, or abridge the jurisdiction of jurors.

RESTORATION... The Democracy Defined Campaign.

Restoration of the constitutional common law governing Trial by Jury implements the citizens’ inherent, inalienable, eternal rights to liberty and justice, as follows:

firstly, to the right to a (genuine) Trial by Jury in defence; and...

...in Common Law Trial by Jury, the jury operates on the presumption of innocence and is called upon to review the evidence presented by the plaintiff, which the accused may refute.

Defence likewise may present exonerative evidence and, furthermore, instigate a Counter Plaint or charge, presenting the evidence for the jury’s consideration as to whether aspects of the law render its enforcement invalid or unjust; that the prosecution is malicious or frivolous, which wastes the jurors’ (the court’s) time and constitutes a crime, per se.

So, the defence may be simultaneously suing the prosecution for damages, and instigating a criminal trial of the plaintiff. The jury is well-placed to try (judge) the causes concurrently. By this means, the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System discourages or pre-empts malicious private or government prosecutions; and moreover, genuine Trial by Jury swiftly leads to the elimination of inequitable (unjust), bad, arbitrary or unwanted legislation and regulations.

secondly, the ordinary citizen’s right to place the evidence in a cost-free arraignment of wrongdoer/s (regardless of the ‘importance’ or position of the accused) in front of fellow citizen-jurors in a Trial by Jury. No one is above the common law of the land. No one is ‘immune’.

When the fact of all the people having equal and ultimate control over the enforcement of laws in the Trial by Jury is a firmly established social reality, it makes the passing of tyrannical legislation by national assemblies a fruitless exercise predestined to failure. Tyranny is nipped in the bud.

The immediate result of Restoration of the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System would be the curtailment of politicians’ and their beholden servitors, the judges’, undue powers, and the thorough reversal of their pernicious acts by which World Civilisation is currently being discreetly dismantled to establish the few select bank-owners’ supreme dictatorship.

With Trial by Jury holding sway, laws count for naught unless they be just. Thus, the People are served, not ruled, by governments. Such government then cannot but embody truly democratic ideals and civilised aspirations. This type of government attracts, and is comprised of, people representing the citizens’ interests; and oppressing none; and no tyrant can attain power. Such is democracy.

At the behest of juries of ordinary citizens, the state is constrained into enforcing only just principles and democratic attitudes which accord with the People’s judgement in Trials by Jury, such as those reflecting common law values: fraternity, liberty, egalitarianism, progress and justice.

By the diligent upholding of this Constitution, all tyranny is pre-empted. Not only are bureaucratic and fiscal injustices eliminated, but tyrants, great and petty, are emasculated. This enforceable democratic control by the People was constitutionally emplaced to extend equally over the historic and current ‘religious’ tyrannies, as to secular, which are suffered under man’s inhumanity to man.

Thus, Constitutional Democracies founded on the Common Law Trial by Jury respond to, but cannot initiate, aggression, including wars so-defined. If Trial by Jury had remained operating throughout the European nations, whence it originated, the Hohenzollern and Hitler tyrannies would have been truncated, and the Holocaust and both World Wars averted.

MANKIND’S MODEL JUSTICE SYSTEM.

All people are subject to and bound by the law of the land, including executive, legislature, and the judiciary. The Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System intentionally takes a person out of the government’s hands (i.e. from judges, prosecutors, police and prison service) and places the accused under the protection of his or her equals and the people’s Common Law of the land alone: Trial by Jury allows no man or woman to be punished unless the indiscriminately chosen equals of the accused (i.e. the jurors) consent to it.
Common law derives from people’s sense of natural law and justice (fairness); the precept universally understood as "do unto others as you would they do unto you."

Subsequently, the Trial by Jury was adopted by the Roman Republic along with much high culture from the Hellenes. The Romans spread Trial by Jury to their far-flung domains.

Trial by Jury Is the True Pan-European Constitution.

In order that democratic Trial by Jury (i.e. "trial per pais" or "by the people of the country," rather than trial by government judge) could take place everywhere throughout extensive territories and large countries, the people’s common law (not government) in practice refined juries from mass juries to petit juries (generally of twelve or fifteen) indiscriminately chosen by lot (reflecting all views in society and protecting minorities), requiring unanimity to pronounce guilt.
Ref. constitutional instalment by King Alfred the Great (constitutional lawgiver), 871-899 A.D., of common law governing petit juries, indiscriminately chosen jurors, & the Principle of Unanimity. See Democracy Defined Essay EIS#11: “Specific Aspects of Magna Carta: The Constitution,” freely downloadable from the Campaign Material Page.

Trial by Jury continued within Europe. In England, after the departure of the Roman legions in 407 A.D., "judicium parium suorum," also known as the Trial by Jury, was recognised as the sole justice system for all causes (suits-at-law), civil, criminal and fiscal, by the world’s most revered and famous written constitution: Magna Carta, the Great Charter of English Liberties, in 1215.

NOTE. "per judicium parium suorum" translates as "according to the judgement of his equals." The Trial by Jury is also known as "the judgement of pares" or "peers." The words ‘pares’ and ‘parium’ mean ‘equals’, i.e. social-equals. The words parium, pares or peers meaning ‘equals’ should not be confused with the later English word ‘peer’ meaning ‘lord’ or ‘titled person’. Peer from Latin ‘parium’ means ‘equal’ as it does, for example, in the word ‘peerless’ meaning ‘matchless’ or ‘without equal’.

Significantly, Conrad, Emperor of Germany, had also installed Trial by Jury two centuries before Magna Carta.

From beyond the Urals to the Atlantic, from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, the Trial by Jury was adopted throughout all the nations of Europe, and subsequently by the (post) colonial nations. Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury is the true pan-European and pan-Occidental Constitution and Justice System.

"Among the Gothic nations of modern Europe, the custom of deciding lawsuits by a jury seems to have prevailed universally." See Millar’s second volume of The Historical View of English Government, p. 296; & vol. 2, Palgrave’s Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth; pp. 147-8, etc.

Trial by Jury then came to the New World. As shown by the U.S. Constitution’s co-author, Justice James Wilson, this history was known to the Founding Fathers (see Works, Vol. 2). The Founders constitutionally installed the Trial by Jury for all crimes civil, criminal and fiscal (other than those which are impeachable).

Trial by Jury is the mechanism which consummates the etymology, i.e. the linguistic derivation, of the word democracy. The Trial by Jury is the ONLY (peaceful) means known to mankind by which the Sovereign Supreme Power can be retained and responsibly lodged in the hands of ALL the people. Wheresoever Trial by Jury is emplaced and operating replicates the creation of democracy.

Regarding ‘divisibility’ of sovereignty: If the elected body imposes any law or regulation which is inconsistent with the People’s sense of justice and fairness, it requires annulment by jurors in Trial by Jury, even by a single juror (unanimity required), who may be part of a minority race or group unfairly discriminated against by the law. In this manner, through the Trial by Jury, sovereignty not only resides with the people as a collective whole, but importantly, it is also embodied ‘divisibly’ with every adult citizen. Trial by Jury is thereby the active principle of democracy: the people rule.

Trial by Jury is mankind’s model justice system and it is the definitive Foundation of Civilisation, sine qua non. That is to say, adoption of democratic Trial by Jury differentiates civilisation from barbarism and despotism. Whether a state is a monarchy or a republic, what converts it from a despotism (a tyrannical, uncivilised state) to a democracy (the civilised state with Trial by Jury operating) is the instalment and implementation of the Trial by Jury through which the people rule. Application, where fitting, of the word democracy, however, defines the republic as a democratic republic, i.e. a democracy, as opposed to a despotic republic. (The word democracy does not replace the word republic. Of course, the republic remains a republic.)

The Cause for All Humanity.

Because of the etymological foundation, there are semasiological limits as to how the word democracy can be (correctly) utilised. Demos-kratein, democratia, democracy, the word, with its unique historic derivation, has the strict parameters of meaning: "government by the People with ultimate sovereign authority invested in the citizen-juror in common law Trial by Jury." In the absence of education of citizens, and especially the Jurors as to their definitive duties in Trial by Jury (see Jurors’ Duties) and their sworn commitment to undertake them, the genuine Trial by Jury could not be expected to take place; and hence, democracy itself would be overturned.

Despite this unequivocal definition of democracy, and relying on the general insouciance of the people, not to say, widespread ignorance, the enemies of democracy attempt to miseducate the people en masse by introducing self-contradictory, extraneous and stridently incorrect uses of the word; viz. Wikipedia’s and the latest dictionaries’ contributors’ gibberish. In this way, they hope to increase their dominion over the mentality of the population, and destroy all concept and memory of mankind’s model justice system; the only one which bestows equal justice and liberty upon all.

Fortunately, there are those (some too, within the courts and law enforcement) who strive to re-establish democracy with its Trial by Jury. This cause for all humanity is ultimately irresistible.

If the power to govern resides in the hands of less than all the people, then an oligarchy or despotism rules. Hence, constitutional instalment and practical implementation of common law Trial by Jury by which ordinary people have the power to overrule and nullify government politicians’ and judges’ acts of injustice, are indispensable not only to the creation and definition of democracy, but also as the criteria by which the legitimacy of government is measured.

"Majoritarian government" or, more accurately put, rule by a minority, a small percentage of the total population, is the unavoidable outcome of government produced by electors’ voting, i.e. suffrage. Electoral voting can never expect to produce representation, equal protection of and justice for all the people: demos, the people.

It is a straightforward verity confirmed by all history and present-day circumstances, that without the democratic Trial by Jury in full operation for all causes (lawsuits) civil, criminal and fiscal, despotism becomes inevitable, with strife, misery and injustice on a massive scale being the lot of the greater part of the population.

Democracy is subtler than many people have been led to believe. It is, however, a phenomenon which every sane teen and adult can be educated to understand and encouraged to promulgate.

Words.

Words (must) have distinct significations and we have no choice but to respect the etymology if we intend to communicate meaningfully with each other.

When the word democracy is properly understood, the contradictions-in-terms (meaningless distortions of language) become self-evident if adjectives such as "direct" or "representative" precede the word. These latter seek to confound, undermine and pervert the real meaning of democracy because, again, they incorrectly allude to statute law derived from government-by-majorities, including referenda and voting in assemblies.

These vacuous terms deliberately obscure the vital semantical point: democracy is founded on the Common Law Trial by Jury, the justice system in which the citizen-juror is sovereign, has all judicial authority, and jurors have the duty to annul enforcement of bad laws, tyranny and acts of injustice.

What goes on in referenda and the national assemblies has nothing whatsoever to do with Trial by Jury, and this latter is the basis of democracy through which the people rule, and hold in their own keeping all the rights and liberties which they wish to enjoy.

Indeed, through the Trial by Jury, democracy is the very system which precludes ochlocracy, i.e. direct rule by mobs, whether of brutish, self-interested minorities or majorities. Democracy protects minorities from wilful majorities prevailing over them. Likewise, democracy does not allow the idea that "rule" by a minority can ever be ‘legitimate’.

In both cases, regardless of the actual percentages, what is described is one segment of the population, an élite, "ruling" over another segment, the ruled or suppressed underclass. Those scenarios both describe an oligarchical governance which, by its nature, must trend towards partiality and injustice. That is the reality which besets the people of the World today, and this is the situation which democracy was brought into being to preclude.

SOME ANTIDEMOCRATIC PITFALLS OF VOTING:
Referendum and Congress.

The Athenians knew all about the virtues of people’s voluntary involvement, en masse. Such activity is conducive to harmony and unity, but realistically-speaking, it is only healthy within that society wherein the common people have the power in Trial by Jury to comprise the Supreme Legislature and annul injustices which may be imposed. That is to say, it is only in Trial by Jury that the constitutional basis of authority resides in democracy, Hellenic, and everywhere else in place and time.

Democracy does not operate on ‘popularity’ or power of the majority, by referenda or in congress. Quite the opposite, democracy prevails on behalf of minorities and even of individuals, in establishing equal justice for ALL the people, demos, the people; not for only some.

It is far from correct to conceive of ‘democracy’ as only a society of a small number of citizens who assemble and administer the government in person, for neither in Hellenic Greece nor in any other democracy is the assembly the supreme judge and final arbiter of law: that is the exclusive domain of the JURY.

Certainly, latterday technology can bring the referendum technique to virtually all the population. However, this was NOT the activity by which democratia, democracy, was achieved, secured and defined in Athens or anywhere else. Far from it.

Explained by its etymology, history and signification, democracy can be paraphrased as "rule by the people through the Trial by Jury Justice System." Yet, by contrast, when the referendum is binding on the society, then the referendum "rules;" the results become statute law; and those who resist or fall foul of the measure are scourged under the full force of the criminal ‘justice’ system. Those who understand the meaning of the word democracy, see how in every case these dismal facts apply. The referendum not only breaches the terms by which democracy is defined, it is in dire CONFLICT with all the adherents of the democratic system. Hence, government-by-referendum cannot be ‘democracy’ by direct means.

DEMOCRACY IS INDEPENDENT OF POPULAR,
ELECTORAL OR LEGISLATORIAL VOTING.

In societies where Constitutional Trial by Jury holds sway, democracy is extant. Democracy, that is, "the people rule through Trial by Jury," is a state of society created neither by the referendum for new laws, nor by voting for representatives, nor by the votes of the representatives. Democracy is independent of the activities of popular, electoral or legislatorial voting. The referendum can take place in a democracy, but, of course, it cannot create democracy. Democracy is only brought into being by Trial by Jury.

When these words are examined more closely than at the superficial first glance, the distinct semasiological attributes which establish the signification of the words ‘referendum’ and ‘democracy’, render them mutually opposed; reciprocally incompatible. It is semantically maladroit to adjoin one to the other in the glib hope that somehow this epithet could express a ‘democracy’ which would be achieved ‘directly’ by referenda. In the context of voting in binding referenda, the word ‘direct’ destroys the entire meaning of the word democracy.

FURTHER ANTITHESES:
MEANING AND FUNCTION.

A ‘referendum’ is not a system for establishing justice; whereas democracy is the very embodiment of a system of the people’s, for the people, which is fully preoccupied with ensuring liberty and equal justice for all.

The results of government-by-referendum within a state bereft of Trial by Jury can yield up the worst imaginable injustices of which our species is capable. For example, the extreme ballot-box popularity of the National Socialist (NAZI) Party through the ’Thirties had the effect of ‘referenda’ or plebiscite, from which the Party claimed a ‘mandate’ for their barbaric acts of tyranny.

In the lead-up to a referendum, and indeed within the assembly, people can be charmed, cajoled, or terrified into voting for a given measure. Majorities can overwhelmingly endorse a party’s program, albeit one of lethal race laws, or the imposition of grotesque rule by the fanatics of a particular religion (to exemplify but a couple of the countless illegitimate antidemocratic ‘laws’ under which humanity constantly suffers).

Today, constitutional democracy is mankind’s model society which installs legem terræ, the common law of the land of which the central tenet is the Trial by Jury Justice System prescribed and defined by Magna Carta, emplaced as the mechanism for protecting the population from all tyrannical inclinations of government maladministration. Democracy thereby bestows equal justice on all the people; empowers ordinary people peacefully to maintain their rights and liberties for themselves; and removes from majorities, judges and politicians any power to forestall the democratic society, whether in a republic or a constitutional monarchy.

In real Trial by Jury, the validity, worth, justice and legality of a law may be challenged. A law’s effects, dangers, a possible venal character, and even the potential mens rea (malicious motives) behind the referendum or the assemblies’ lawmakers themselves, may be exposed.

When such circumstances are pertinent to the defence of those who break, resist or refuse to submit to the law, then, alerting jurors to their duty to annul bad laws and unjust prosecutions, counsel and defendant induce the jury to dispassionate deliberations on the evidence, facts, moral intentions, the purpose and fairness of the law, and of its enforcement.

Further protection is afforded by Trial by Jury against factions, the tyrant and demagogue by common law processes, such as the care with which all views amongst the population are reflected within juries, by random selection of jurors.

The referendum on the other hand, when installed as the means of rule, of governing, in which majorities have power to please themselves at the expense of minorities, is a horror which strikes fear and fury within the breast of every sane adult and true democrat [not party-political].

Government-by-referendum is as atrocious as government-by-majorities in the legislature, whenever these functions are unrestrained because of an absence of Constitutional Trial by Jury.

FOR EXAMPLE !

For example, the Spaniards have lost all memory of democracy and their former Gothic heritage of Common Law Trial by Jury. They were deceived by their unscrupulous politicians who praised the numerous social benefits listed in the so-called European Constitution, without alerting them to the fact that all the terms of the ‘constitution’ are not guaranteed; they do not control and bind the governing bodies in the slightest. Some ‘constitution’!

On the contrary, the terms are actually changeable at the whim of the unelected commissioners (commissars) of the Supreme Soviet (council) System; all citizens are at the mercy of the inquisitorial methods of trial-by-judge, which in practice denies habeas corpus; freedom from arbitrary arrest (without probable cause); and Trial by Jury. The ‘European Treaty-Constitution’* is NOT a constitution; it is literally a charter of mass enslavement to the power of, or behind, the state.
*Definition-in-brief: a constitution is a code of laws and customs for the guidance and control of government.

The Spanish decision overruled a significant proportion of the population, which, when added to the large number who did not vote, was the real majority. Thus was the execrable result of government-by-referendum.

MISNOMER.

Democracy, the constitution of government by Trial by Jury, was itself brought into being by the Athenians as the constitutional means of superseding and curtailing a state of government-by-referendum, from the voting in the assembly in which all could take part. Hence, again, it is seen that applying to democracy the adjective ‘direct’ in the context of referenda, is a linguistic mutilation. The attachment results, not in a meaningful nomenclature, but in a hideous self-contradictory misnomer. Instead of a useful term being coined, it represents reductio ad absurdam.

This ‘direct’ idea is an expression of linguistic confusion which has been cooked-up by a person or persons wholly unaware of (or intentionally to conceal) the definitive aspect of Trial by Jury as forming the foundation of democratia, democracy.

The Juror’s Judgement.

Citizen-Juries educated and instructed to judge on the justice of law and its enforcement, can be relied upon to protect people from the state (i.e. the government), when the state breaches correct behaviour in attempting to enforce injustices. It is for this reason that those who stand to gain money and/or power from tyranny by the imposition of unjust ‘laws’, regard the genuine Trial by Jury as an obstacle to be undermined and destroyed. Untrustworthy at best, of outright criminal intent at worst, are those who, instead of restoring Common Law Trial by Jury to its true form, would discard it altogether.

The Unconscionable, Inhuman Tool of Despots.

All societies govern by their Justice System. The power to punish carries with it ALL power. If at any time, albeit for an instant, the Supreme Power is removed from or ceded by the people, and the power is acquired by, or delegated to, a group consisting of LESS than all the People, then the democratic state has ceased to exist: an undemocratic government, that is, a despotism, has assumed its place.

It was explicitly to counteract arbitrary, corrupt tyrannical government that the protections of Magna Carta installed the people’s "law of the land" criteria of constitutional democracy "in perpetuity" and "for ever." See Preamble & Article 63. These criteria, which were also constitutionally adopted by the Founding Fathers, have been the foundation of compassionate democratic civilisation through the tribulations of a long varied history. As has repeatedly occurred in the past, instead of upholding them, present-day criminal ‘politicians’ now intend their destruction.
This "law of the land" is now called common law. See Democracy Defined Essay EIS#9; "LEGEM TERRÆ: THE PEOPLE AND THEIR COMMON LAW REIGN SUPREME; The Law of the Land Is the Common Law and Vice Versa."

These democratic protections are as follows:

(i) the citizen’s right to a Trial by a Jury of peers (i.e. social-equals, not trial by government or its employees);
(ii) the right and duty of the Juror to judge on the justice of the law and its enforcement in finding the Verdict in Trial by Jury (i.e. Annulment-by-Jury or Jury Nullification);
(iii) freedom from arbitrary arrest (i.e. without probable cause);
(iv) freedom from arbitrary detention (later known as Habeas Corpus);
(v) equality before the law.

The common law Trial by Jury is the central tenet and sole justice system of "the law of the land," legem terræ, the European People’s fundamental code and law as inscribed into Magna Carta in 1215. See chapter [i.e. article] 39.

Common law does not include any statutes made by government nor decisions made by judges.
See TRIAL BY JURY: Its History, True Purpose and Modern Relevance ISBN 9781902848723.
Also see Democracy Defined Essay EIS#9: "LEGEM TERRÆ."
Also see the constitutional, historical and law texts of Blackstone, Crabbe, Palgrave, Coke, Gilbert, Hume, Hallam, Stewart, Hale, et al.

The common law which existed in 1215 A.D., at the time of the Great Charter Constitution’s (Magna Carta’s) first of many enactments and ratifications, must be differentiated from that which modern government has corrupted by legislation: a counterfeit which is "common law" in name only.

Common law is emphatically neither "government-made" nor "judge-made." Quite the contrary: it is exclusively the product of the sense of fairness, natural law and justice of the ordinary people. Modern usurpation notwithstanding, common law does not consist of case precedents (stare decisis), for juries decide the law, which includes the sentence, in each individual case. Nor is it comprised of judicial rulings, decisions or interpretations of statutes.

Common law does not ever or in any way come from government judges. Indeed, common law is the antithesis (the ‘opposite’) of judge-made law, and it is supposed to free all the people equally from the shackles of arbitrary government and their bidden employees. This common law, inserted into the Constitution, binds government and legally controls the government’s modus operandi.

Having established what common law is, one must note the extent to which the term common law has been abused. It is an opprobrium to misinform people that "common law" is a product of judges, stare decisis, and government courts. Worse though: it is utterly wrong to allow government to rob the people of their true common law and its power of emancipation.

It is unconstitutional to amend in effect The Constitution’s installation of the common law Trial by Jury Justice System by co-opting the common law by legislation into a body of law legislated by congress or parliament, or made by judges. For this has been the illegal means of burying common law and the authentic Trial by Jury, to enable government to obliterate the People’s ability (peacefully) to protect their liberties for themselves. It moreover supplants the model justice system of Trial by Jury with the flawed, one-sided, inherently illegal despotic system of trial-by-judge.

An Irrevocable Principle.

It is an irrevocable principle of the traditional pan-European, the British, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and the American People’s Common Law governing jurisprudence, and of Magna Carta (Article 53 of John’s Charter and 17 of Henry’s), that Trial shall exclusively be by Jury and that at Trial by Jury no judge or other officer appointed by government shall preside in criminal cases or lawsuits in which the government is also an interested party (called pleas of the crown in the U.K.). In such cases, without the observance of this prohibition there can be neither Trial by Jury, nor legal trial of any type.

The reasons for this are simple and pure: regarding convening officers (‘judges’) at trials, impartiality and integrity cannot be obtained (nor realistically even expected) from people who enforce the laws who are selected by those who also make and maintain the laws. At the common "law of the land," whether in civil or criminal cases, all officers who convene trials are chosen (elected) by the people. At common law, all convenors (justices; judges) are themselves subject to common law and are answerable to the common law tribunals of the people (i.e. Trial by Jury), not protected by élite privilege nor impeachable by government and legislature.
See Book 4 of Blackstone’s Analysis of the Laws of England, p. 413; and Introduction to Gilbert’s History of the Common Pleas, p. 2, note, & p. 4; etc.

Trial by Jury is so-named, for in democratic societies the trial of a citizen is by fellow citizens who comprise the Jury. Trial is not ‘trial-by-government’ which could never be fair where government is also one of the contesting parties. Judges themselves comprise a branch of government, and, they are in the pay of government. Police, prison service and above all, prosecutors and judges are employed to enforce governments’ laws. Such personnel should never be asked, nor relied on, to decide impartially whether laws are just, for they must fulfil their task or face the fury of the government, their employer.

For these reasons given, government and judiciary are incompetent to require the conviction or punishment of any person for any offence whatever.

Q. "When is a judge not a judge?"
A. "When the ‘judge’ is not a member of the jury."

Until the Latin-derived word ‘juror’ was adopted, jurors were actually called the judges, in recognition of their rôle. "...the judges, for so the jury were called..." See p. 55 of Crabbe’s History of the English Law, etc.

In Trial by Jury, the Foreman or woman of the jury is the principal presiding officer.

In Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury, all adult citizens qualify for jury service (save the aged, the sick, convicts and lunatics). Common law requires Jurors to be indiscriminately chosen by lot or chance, so as to represent all views in society and protect minorities (see later sections on Jury Selection and Illegal ‘Jury Packing’ by the government).

Trial by Jury Was Constitutionally Emplaced for the Purposes of:

A.) not only ascertaining guilt or innocence of the accused and where necessary for apportioning retribution, but also

B.) of transcendent importance, as a barrier to protect the vast mass of innocent citizenry from the crimes of arbitrary government, i.e. unjust laws, tyranny; and from the prejudices and incompetence of fallible justices (judges). Trial by Jury enables the people to judge authoritatively what their liberties and laws are (as explained hereinafter), so that the people retain all the liberties which they wish to enjoy.

The Juror’s Duties in Trial by Jury.

Wherever Trial by Jury takes place, be it in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and numerous other countries, it is DEFINITIVE of Trial by Jury that, after swearing to convict the guilty and acquit the innocent, in finding their Verdict,

the jurors judge:

on the justice of the law, and annul, by pronouncing the Not Guilty Verdict, any law or act of enforcement which is deemed unfair or unjust according to the juror’s conscience (i.e. sense of right and wrong);
in addition to the facts, and
on the admissibility of evidence (the evidence not being pre-selected by government or judge and/or prosecutor).

Jurors must judge:
that the accused acted with malice aforethought, i.e. mens rea, a premeditated malicious motive to find guilt (‘guilt’ cannot be ascribed by legislation*);
on the nature and gravity of the alleged offence; and where guilt is unanimously found,
on mitigating circumstances if any (provocation; temptation; incitation); and
set the sentence (with regard to its being fit and just).

* There is no moral justice nor political necessity (i.e. deterrent value) for punishing where there was no mens rea. (In the case of one person injuring another innocently or accidentally, the civil law suit and the Trial by Jury award appropriate compensation for damages.)
See Democracy Defined Essay EIS#8, "GUILTY?" OR "NOT GUILTY?" WRONGFUL PROSECUTION; AMNESTY & RESTITUTION.

For jurors not to do the above, or for someone other than the jurors to make any such decisions, is another process: call it ‘trial-by-someone-else’ if you will, or ‘trial-by-the-judge’ ― but this travesty cannot be defined as Trial BY JURY.

In Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury:

~the jury has the power to call witnesses, advisers and appoint amicus curiæ;
~the correct common law rôle of convenors of courts (‘judges’) is as a convenor and for arranging security; advisory, inasmuch as this may be requested by the jury, of which advice jurors may take only what is by them adjudged appropriate; and for the arranging of re-trials and appeals if necessitated by circumstances (see Gilbert’s History of the Common Pleas, pp. 57 & 70; and Vol. 1 of Palgrave’s Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, p. 277; etc.);
~the ‘judge’ has no judicial rôle or authority: this precludes the possibility of judges inflicting injustices as is so often the case today;
~contempt charges laid on persons by juries or judges have to be tried as for any crime, that is, by jury;
~all evidence can be presented, and requires to be considered for its admissibility by the jurors ― especially if it reveals partiality, injustice, an unfounded nature, or venality in the law.

The Illegality of the Status Quo.

Anyone acquainted with the process of law in the United States, Britain, Australia and elsewhere today, will see how far removed the practices of courts are from the ideals and legally binding stipulations of those nations’ Constitutions. Today, every single one of the above requirements definitive of Trial by Jury (including judging on the facts of the case) is illegally forbidden, interfered with and/or obstructed by the ‘judges’.

Labyrinthine deceits of modern usurpation inhabit the politicians’ statute book, which bears no resemblance and pays no respect to universal common laws of truth, justice, liberty, and equality before the law. Common law is inserted into the Constitution to protect the people from government abuse of power. Common law legally binds government and controls the government’s modus operandi. As distinct from despotism and barbarism, this common law is the definitive basis of civilisation, democracy and legitimate government, sine qua non.

It should be remembered that the Juror’s duty is uncomplicated: ‘guilt’ of a crime can only be pronounced where the accused’s act was a deliberate, premeditated one of malice aforethought. Similar judgements are the daily fact of life in commonplace human interactions. We make such appraisals frequently... "Is this person behaving in a way that is dishonest or malign?" "Is that person telling the truth?" "Why are they doing that?" "Are these people genuine?" (Again, note that in the case of one person injuring another innocently or accidentally, the civil law suit and the Trial by Jury award appropriate compensation for damages.)

Regardless of the intricacies of evidence (and it is always for the prosecution to present a clear case), in cases of fraud the contrast between genuine innocence and malicious motivation is especially easy for jurors to discern. Only ulterior mens rea, i.e. criminal intent, lies behind politicians and other individuals advocating denial to the accused of Trial by Jury and the handing over of fraud cases to ‘trial-by-government-judge’.

Laws Require To Be Just.

The inscribed governmental statute laws require to be just and simple if they are to be met with unanimous approbation from juries. Again, it is always for the plaintiff to make his cause clear.

If explanation of a law is ever necessary and disputation over its fairness and hence its very legality arises, then this explication requires to be performed equally by plaintiff and defendant and/or defence and prosecution counsel, not exclusively by the convenor (judge).

Juries decide on the justice, validity and applicability of laws in every act of enforcement. Common law, being exclusively the product of the sense of fairness, natural law and justice of the ordinary people, is known almost intuitively to people everywhere. With a modicum of thought, people realise that justice makes its case plain to sane adults in all times and places.

Common Law Trials by Jury Do Not Drag On.

With the Jury deciding on the admissibility of the evidence and supervising the process, Trial by Jury brings justice which is fair, swift and sure. Prosecution counsel must marshal the evidence to present an undelayed, forthright, straightforward comprehensible case; not the protracted lucrative charade in which lawyers feign and wallow today.

Jurors involved in Jury Duty embody authority of the country and its people: they are properly respected and compensated.

Crime Is Diminished.

Brutish intrusions by the state and its personnel into innocent citizens’ lives are subject to prosecution and, where appropriate, to just retribution. Vexatious regulations are obliterated; life, liberty, property and rights are held in the hands of the people themselves (not subject to arbitrary government intervention). Crime and litigation in the society run by ultimate rule of the people deciding the law as Jurors, are significantly diminished. The mass of partisan, inequitable and venal legislation (extant today), is duly annulled, unenforceable and generally expunged. Hence, the number of prosecutions is greatly reduced.

Why Is the Citizen-Juror’s Judgement on the Law
So Vital a Part of any Fair and Competent Justice System ?

See the following paragraphs quoted from THE REPORT, ISBN 9781902848204. THE REPORT is endorsed by academics and judges, and has a Foreword written by a Nobel laureate Official Adviser to U.S. government.

"In the governance of men and women, few, if any, matters are of greater consequence than the diligence and precision with which the judiciary observes and adheres to the definitive code of Common Law Trial by Jury, long established for the determination of an accused person’s guilt or innocence."

Malconditioning.

If a person does not understand the workings of Trial by Jury by which it protects (is intended to protect) the population from arbitrary government, unjust laws and the prejudices and incompetence of judges, then that person could not be expected to comprehend the meaning of the related word, democracy. From ignorance, this person will always misuse and abuse the vocabulary. The question is: are people open and willing to learn ? Or are they permanently set on their purblind course after the statists have finished malindoctrinating them ?

Many people do not know, or do not wish others to know, democracy’s purpose and proven constitutional means of securing equally, liberty and justice for all: the workings of the people’s common law of the land and its inimitable justice system of Trial by Jury. They are perversely determined to inflict their abhorrent incorrectitudes and mental malconditioning on others ("brainwashed").

Facts about Democracy.

The historical facts about Democracy in Hellenic Greece and everywhere else, are that it was a virile system and devotedly supported by the mass of just, civilised, peace and freedom-loving people.

Democratic free Athens eventually only succumbed because of the mighty invasion of the Macedonian, Alexander the Great (conqueror), whose far-flung martial exploits set back the socio-political development of mankind.

Constitutional Democracy.

"We the people" (demos, the people) is the direct transcription of the Hellenic democratic ideal into the Constitution of the United States, as follows:

"We the People, demos, the people, of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Article III. Section 2. "The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury."

It is not necessary for the word ‘democracy’ to appear in the wording of a constitution or declaration for the state of democracy to be created, because, whereas neither Magna Carta nor the U.S. Constitution insert this word, in the U.S. Constitution, demos is stipulated in the English words, We the people, accompanied by constitutional installation of democracy’s definitive attribute, the Trial by Jury through which the people have overall rule; and Magna Carta is written in Latin, prescribing the details of rule by the people through legem terræ, the common law of the land and its central tenet, "judicium parium suorum," the Trial by Jury.

Ref. EIS#11, "An Essay on Specific Aspects of Magna Carta, the Great Charter Constitution," freely downloadable from the Democracy Defined Campaign Material webpage. See how Magna Carta emplaces the judgement of peers Trial by Jury, thus following the form of the then extant, pan-European People’s true Constitution.

Democratia, an ordered democratic society, is extant wherever common law Trial by Jury functions, regardless of whether in a republic, a constitutional monarchy or within a small society bereft of formal government.

N.B. DEFINITION.

Definition, republic: a form of government without a monarch.

Etymological derivation, Latin. res, affair; publica, public; respublica, commonwealth.

Every type of government could be found in a republic, apart from the fact that the head of state is not a monarch. There are numerous republics: democratic; theocratic (‘religious’); military; fascist; authoritarian; totalitarian; communist/ socialist; and so on. They all have constitutions and all are constitutional republics.

As for the U.S. Constitution, Article 4; Section 4: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government [as distinguished from a MONARCHY], and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence."

There is nothing intrinsically benignant about republics: they come in all shapes. The blood-soaked post French Revolution mob-rule was a republic, like that of the Russian Bolsheviks. They were ochlocracies (rule by the mob), along with governments of the sanguine communist Chinese and the deluded adherents to the violent primitive ‘religious’ theocracies. Yet, these are all constitutional republics.

Enemies of Justice and Liberty.

Democracy, which establishes responsible freedom of the people, always has enemies amongst power-hungry oligarchs, would-be tyrants (banker Hamilton, religious fundamentalist Ames, et al) and their abject servitors; and there are others whose misuse of the word demonstrates that they simply did not (and today do not) know its meaning. Generations have been confused and deluded by the premeditated or unwitting incorrectitudes of Fisher Ames, Webster, Franklin, Hamilton and others...

Despots do not want you to know the real meaning of democracy ― for fear you might reclaim it for the good people of the world. To this day, plutocrats and those who sow disinformation for them, remain the foes of democracy ― because democracy emasculates tyrants and emancipates the population.

Note that law ‘dictionaries’ express perverted meanings intentionally imposed by politically-motivated legislation. They reflect the will of our oligarchical rulers, not the truths of history and the sciences of etymology, philology, and semantics. The misinformation which they and other modern ‘law’ books impart exemplifies propaganda which controls the mind of the credulous simpleton.
See Essay EIS#21, "ON THE VALUE OR OTHERWISE OF LAW DICTIONARIES," freely downloadable from the Democracy Defined Campaign Material webpage.

The behind-the-scenes money masters, autocratic ‘rulers’ of the West, have now all but ‘ruled out’ Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury, Habeas Corpus, and freedom from arbitrary arrest (i.e. without probable cause), thereby precipitating nations into definition as tyrannies as opposed to democracies. The Founders of the U.S. and the authors and instigators of Magna Carta who risked all to gain freedom and installed Trial by Jury as a barrier to protect the people from misgovernment and crime, would have the greatest disdain for this generation for allowing these malignant events to come to pass.

The ongoing demolition by enemies-within of the democracies of the West is hardly surprising though, for as long as Westerners allow themselves to be miseducated as to the meaning of such important words as democracy and republic; and they are so completely flummoxed by the disinformation promulgated by the servitors of the wealthy oligarchs which leads them even to disparage democracy ! Yet, democracy is the singular proven means of their secular salvation, by which justice and the lives, rights, liberty, and property of ALL the people are peacefully secured.

As Founders of the Democratic-Republican Party, Madison or Jefferson would hardly be likely to call democracy ‘vile’ or ‘mob rule’! Nowhere in Madison’s copious writings does the word ‘vile’ even appear. Wake up, People! The obvious example of the dupe or a servitor of tyrants is the person who maligns democracy as "two wolves, and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." These are facile fictions, libels and calumnies adopted or made up by the likes of Rose Wilder Lane and Devvy Kidd to delude people and lead them astray...

It is not credible (unless they are being deliberately untruthful), that people who talk of the wolves and sheep could have researched the history, etymology and signification of the word democracy: demos-kratein, democratia: the people rule through Trial by Jury.

An Eternal Criterion of Justice.

It remains a universal eternal criterion of justice that the validity and justice of laws and their enforcement require to be judged not by those who make and enforce the laws, but by those who voluntarily agree to abide by the laws. All those who do not uphold this tenet are then promoting unlawful rule by a tyrannical élite. Unwittingly, or for self-advantage, they serve despots, abet tyranny, and are the criminal enemies of freedom and justice.

Trial by Jury defines democracy, sine qua non. Within a Hellenic or modern democracy, the Juror is sovereign in Trial by Jury:

The Jury Comprises the Supreme Legislature.

NOVERINT UNIVERSI
Let All Men and Women Know.
May Every Citizen Beware !

If a juror or any citizen accepts as the law that which the judge states, then that juror or citizen has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that was once the citizen’s safeguard of liberty.

The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while there was time.

Complacent, insouciant, ignorant servile populations of Westerners, e.g. Americans, British, Europeans, New Zealanders, Canadians and Australians, have allowed antidemocratic politicians to strip them of their legal protections which are constitutionally established as the Juror’s Rights and Duty. People have permitted institutionalisation of despotic attitudes. Oppression has taken root and become widespread even in the former great bastions of democracy.

Trial-by-judge is the system which denies the common law Trial by Jury. Trial-by-judge is the National Socialist (NAZI), Stalinist, Soviet, fascist and communist system of judicial oppression, by which primitive tyranny thrives; massive injustices are routinely enforced on innocent people; and citizens are intentionally put into permanent fear and servitude.