A New Jury System to Build Legitimacy: The Case of Argentina

ABSTRACT

In 2015, the province of Neuquén, Argentina held its first jury trial, inaugurating a common law‐style jury system that has since spread to twelve other provinces. This dramatic innovation in what had been a civil law context was an effort to build the legal system's legitimacy through democratic innovation. To assess the operation of and reactions to this effort, we collected and analyzed posttrial surveys from 433 jurors who served in 37 trials to learn their reactions to being summoned, their comprehension of evidence, their deliberative experiences, and their perceptions of the impact of jury service on their attitudes. In addition, we surveyed 34 judges and 108 lawyers from these same trials to assess how they managed the demands of the new system. Despite worries about citizens' reluctance to participate and concerns about the competence of juries, both jurors and legal professionals favorably evaluated the jury's competence, and jurors' ratings of their service experience correlated positively with their posttrial civic attitudes, confidence in public officials, and intention to participate in public life. The discussion places these results in a broader context.