Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Strange events are occurring in the world of the jury. At a time when English confidence in the institution is on the ebb, a phenomenon evidenced both in the titles of recent jury studies - The Jury Under Attack and Taking Liberties- and in a steady stream of skeptical commentaries, it is reported that in Japan the Bar Federation is set to call for the restoration of jury trial, first introduced by a law of 1926 but suspended after an experimental period in 1942. Spain has a new Constitution that imposes a duty on the legislature to institute jury trial, an undertaking currently under examination by the Spanish Ministry of Justice. And in South Africa, recent calls for a more representative justice system have prompted the editor of the South African Law Journal, Professor Ellison Kahn, to devote a tetralogy of articles to consideration of the reintroduction of jury trial within that jurisdiction.