One hundred and fifty million jurors
The people are the ultimate jurors. photo: Munem Wasif/ Drik news
A jury trial is a legal proceeding in which a jury either makes a decision or makes findings which are then applied by a judge. It is to be distinguished from a bench trial, where a judge or panels of judges make all decisions. Typically, the jury only judges guilt, but the actual penalty is set by the judge.
In most common law jurisdictions, the jury is responsible for finding the facts of the case, while the judge determines the law. In countries where jury trials are common, they are often seen as an important check against state power.
Other common assertions about the benefits of trial by jury are that it provides a means of interjecting community norms and values into judicial proceedings, and that it legitimises the law by providing opportunities for citizens to validate criminal statutes in their application to specific trials.
In Pakistan, trial by jury was abolished in 1959 during martial law, while in India, jury trials were abolished in 1960 on the grounds that they would be susceptible to media and public influence. However, in the United States, Canada, and many countries in Europe, jury trial is still the only mode of legal proceeding when a crime is considered serious.
Notwithstanding the absence of jury trial, if the accused is a popular public figure, then each and every concerned citizen of the republic becomes a de facto juror who monitors every word of the deposition of the plaintiff and the witnesses, not only to evaluate its validity but also to judge how far the crime in question deviates from the "community norms."
A case of such interest happened in 1969 when the then government initiated the so called Agaratala conspiracy case against Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and 34 other Bengali civil and military personnel. The trial was held in the cantonment by a three-member trial bench, but through the verbatim publications of the proceedings in the print media, seventy five million de facto jurors became an integral part of the trial process.
The verdict of the de facto jurors became evident, especially after the depositions of one after another of the accused who narrated their horrific stories of torture for obtaining the confessional statements. The end result was not only the withdrawal of the case, but also the transformation of the chief accused from a popular politician to a national hero.
After a lapse of nearly forty years, as it happens, the daughter of that aforesaid national hero is in the dock on charges of extortion, bribery and misuse of authority. In fact, the charges against her came from three directions; the current government, the current ACC, and the ACC under the previous government.
The legal suit of extortion has been brought against her by a businessman, who by no means has an impeccable past. He reportedly (Prothom Alo, August 19, 2007) laundered Tk. 237 crores out of the country, and has returned the amount to the national exchequer during early tenure of the current CTG. Lately, he confessed in a pre-arranged press conference that he did not sue the former PM. Likewise, during his deposition in the court, he did not identify her as one of the accused either.
The logic behind his not filing the case during the tenure of a political government does not bode well in the psyche of any de facto juror, since the last government was by no means a great friend of the accused. So the merit of the case (notwithstanding the procedural issues now under appeal) pivots around a confessional statement of a co-accused, who has already disclosed in the court that the said statement had been obtained under severe duress while on remand.
The second case in question is the one lodged by the newly reconstituted ACC. The charge against her in the case is of taking a bribe from a firm for the Bangabandhu Foundation, which the chief executive of the donor organisation has termed a donation.
It has been reported that the said firm has a noble history of making numerous donations, whose recipients include the Dhaka University. It was also reported in a highly analytical piece in DS that the firm in question was indeed the lowest bidder.
So, it will be an uphill task to convince any de facto juror that her incrimination has been guided by the merits of the accusation, rather than by indiscreet selectivity -- the very discretionary acts that have been painting a dark shadow on the honest intent of our collective effort to get the nation out of the curse of corruption.
The 150 million de facto jurors are the ultimate arbiters in dissecting fact from fiction in the people's court thereby repudiating or rehabilitating a public figure.
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