posted on 2023-06-09, 02:45authored byValerie Whittington
The concept of legitimacy is examined (I) through a reading of Habermas’s work on communicative action, and through a reading of the opening chapters of Between Facts and Norms. The claim that legal juries function in a manner similar to a ‘parliament’ is rejected in favour of a claim that they exercise a decentred ‘particle’ of popular sovereignty. (II) An analysis of the jury’s lifeworld origins is undertaken and, (III) the essay then considers the democratic function of the operation of ‘jury equity’ whereby juries may produce ‘perverse’ decisions, or as described in the USA – jury ‘nullification’ whereby juries bring in verdicts that go against overwhelming evidence
History
Publication status
Published
File Version
Published version
Journal
Studies in Social and Political Thought
ISSN
1467-2219
Publisher
Centre for Social and Political Thought School of History, Art History and Philosophy University of Sussex Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QN