title: Varnish

text: Prepared shellac is typically available in "clear" and "amber" (or "orange") varieties, generally as "three-pound cut" or three pounds dry shellac to one US gallon of alcohol. Other natural color shades such as ruby and yellow are available from specialty pigment or woodworker's supply outlets. Dry shellac is available as refined flakes, "sticklac," "button lac," or "seedlac." "White pigmented" shellac primer paint is widely available in retail outlets, billed as a fast-drying interior primer "problem solver", in that it adheres to a variety of surfaces and seals off odors and smoke stains. Shellac clean-up may be done either with pure alcohol or with ammonia cleansers.


title: Varnish

text: Modern commercially produced varnishes employ some form of alkyd for producing a protective film. Alkyds have good solvent, moisture and UV light resistance. Alkyds are chemically modified vegetable oils which operate well in a wide range of conditions and can be engineered to speed up the cure rate and thus harden faster. Usually this is by the use of metal salt driers such as cobalt salts. Better (and more expensive) exterior varnishes employ alkyds made from high performance oils and contain UV-absorbers; this improves gloss-retention and extends the lifetime of the finish. Various resins may also be combined with alkyds as part of the formula for typical "oil" varnishes that are commercially available.


title: Varnish

text: "Spar varnish" (also called "marine varnish" or "yacht varnish") was originally intended for use on ship or boat spars, to protect the timber from the effects of sea and weather. Spars bend under the load of their sails. The primary requirements were water resistance and also elasticity, so as to remain adhering as the spars flexed. Elasticity was a pre-condition for weatherproofing too, as a finish that cracked would then allow water through, even if the remaining film was impermeable. Appearance and gloss was of relatively low value. Modified tung oil and phenolic resins are often used.


title: Varnish

text: When first developed, no varnishes had good UV-resistance. Even after more modern synthetic resins did become resistant, a true spar varnish maintained its elasticity above other virtues, even if this required a compromise in its UV-resistance. Spar varnishes are thus "not" necessarily the best choice for outdoor woodwork that does not need to bend in service.


title: Varnish

text: Despite this, the widespread perception of "marine products" as "tough" led to domestic outdoor varnishes being branded as "Spar varnish" and sold on the virtue of their weather- and UV-resistance. These claims may be more or less realistic, depending on individual products. Only relatively recently have spar varnishes been available that can offer both effective elasticity and UV-resistance.


title: Varnish

text: Drying oils, such as linseed and tung oil, are not true varnishes though often in modern terms they accomplish the same thing.


title: Varnish

text: Polyurethane varnishes are typically hard, abrasion-resistant, and durable coatings. They are popular for hardwood floors but are considered by some wood finishers to be difficult or unsuitable for finishing furniture or other detailed pieces. Polyurethanes are comparable in hardness to certain alkyds but generally form a tougher film. Compared to simple oil or shellac varnishes, polyurethane varnish forms a harder, decidedly tougher and more waterproof film. However, a thick film of ordinary polyurethane may de-laminate if subjected to heat or shock, fracturing the film and leaving white patches. This tendency increases with long exposure to sunlight or when it is applied over soft woods like pine. This is also in part due to polyurethane's lesser penetration into the wood. Various priming techniques are employed to overcome this problem, including the use of certain oil varnishes, specified "dewaxed" shellac, clear penetrating epoxy sealer, or "oil-modified" polyurethane designed for the purpose. Polyurethane varnish may also lack the "hand-rubbed" lustre of drying oils such as linseed or tung oil; in contrast, however, it is capable of a much faster and higher film build, accomplishing in two coats what may require multiple applications of oil. Polyurethane may also be applied over a straight oil finish, but because of the relatively slow curing time of oils, the emission of certain chemical byproducts, and the need for exposure to oxygen from the air, care must be taken that the oils are sufficiently cured to accept the polyurethane. One of the disadvantages of a polyurethane-based varnish is the tendency to yellow over time. This is because the hydroxyl groups of a regular alkyd are reacted with TDI to produce a urethane-alkyd. This introduces a high degree of aromaticity and hence tendency to yellow.


title: Varnish

text: Unlike drying oils and alkyds which cure after evaporation of the solvent and upon reaction with oxygen from the air, true polyurethane coatings cure after evaporation of the solvent and then either by a variety of reactions of chemicals within the original mix, or by reaction with moisture from the air. Certain polyurethane products are "hybrids" and combine different aspects of their parent components. "Oil-modified" polyurethanes, whether water-borne or solvent-borne, are currently the most widely used wood floor finishes.


title: Varnish

text: Exterior use of polyurethane varnish may be problematic due to its heightened susceptibility to deterioration through ultra-violet light exposure. All clear or translucent varnishes, and indeed all film-polymer coatings (e.g. paint, stain, epoxy, synthetic plastic, etc.) are susceptible to this damage in varying degrees. Pigments in paints and stains protect against UV damage. UV-absorbers are added to polyurethane and other varnishes (e.g. spar varnish) to work against UV damage but are decreasingly effective over the course of 2–4 years, depending on the quantity and quality of UV-absorbers added, as well as the severity and duration of sun exposure. Water exposure, humidity, temperature extremes, and other environmental factors affect all finishes.


title: Varnish

text: The word "lacquer" refers to quick-drying, solvent-based varnishes or paints. Although their names may be similarly derived, lacquer is not the same as "shellac" and is not dissolved in alcohol. Lacquer is dissolved in lacquer thinner, which is a highly flammable solvent typically containing butyl acetate and xylene or toluene. Lacquer is typically sprayed on, within a "spray booth" that evacuates overspray and minimizes the risk of combustion.


title: Varnish

text: The rule of thumb is that a clear wood finish formulated to be sprayed is a lacquer, but if it is formulated to be brushed on then it is a varnish. Thus, by far most pieces of wooden furniture are lacquered.


title: Varnish

text: Lacquer may be considered different from varnish because it can be re-dissolved later by a solvent (such as the one it was dissolved in when it was applied) and does not chemically change to a solid like other varnishes.


title: Varnish

text: Acrylic resin varnishes are typically water-borne varnishes with the lowest refractive index of all finishes and high transparency. They resist yellowing. Acrylics have the advantage of water clean-up and lack of solvent fumes, but typically do not penetrate into wood as well as oils. They sometimes lack the brushability and self-leveling qualities of solvent-based varnishes. Generally they have good UV-resistance.


title: Varnish

text: In the art world, varnishes offer dust-resistance and a harder surface than bare paint – they sometimes have the benefit of ultraviolet light resistors, which help protect artwork from fading in exposure to light. Acrylic varnish should be applied using an isolation coat (a permanent, protective barrier between the painting and the varnish, preferably a soft, glossy gel medium) to make varnish removal and overall conservation easier. Acrylic varnishes used for such a final removable art protection layer are typically mineral-spirit–based acrylic, rather than water-based.


title: Varnish

text: Various epoxy resin systems have been formulated as varnishes or floor finishes whereby two components are mixed directly before application. Sometimes, the two parts are of equal volume and referred to as 1:1 but not always, as 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 and even 5:1 mixing ratios are commercially available. The individual components are usually referred to as Part A and Part B. All two-part epoxies have a pot-life or working time during which the mixed material can be used. Usually the pot-life is a matter of a few hours or less, but this is highly temperature dependent. Both water-borne and solvent-based epoxies are used. Epoxies do have a tendency to yellow over a fairly short period of time.


title: Varnish

text: Used when a fast-curing, tough, hard finish is desired, such as for kitchen cabinets and office furniture. Comes in two parts: a resin and an acid catalyst. The first is a blend of an amino resin and an alkyd. The acid catalyst is added right before application in a set ratio determined by the manufacturer. Most produce minimal yellowing. There are, however, two downsides to this finish. The first is that as the finish cures, it gives off formaldehyde, which is toxic and carcinogenic. The second is that the finish can crack or craze if too many coats are applied.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: From 1930 to 1952, the government of the Soviet Union, on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin under the direction of the NKVD official Lavrentiy Beria, forcibly transferred populations of various groups. These actions may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population (often classified as "enemies of workers"), deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite directions to fill ethnically cleansed territories. Dekulakization marked the first time that an entire class was deported, whereas the deportation of Soviet Koreans in 1937 marked the precedent of a specific ethnic deportation of an entire nationality.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: In most cases, their destinations were underpopulated remote areas (see Forced settlements in the Soviet Union). This includes deportations to the Soviet Union of non-Soviet citizens from countries outside the USSR. It has been estimated that, in their entirety, internal forced migrations affected at least 6 million people. Of this total, 1.8 million kulaks were deported in 1930–31, 1.0 million peasants and ethnic minorities in 1932–39, whereas about 3.5 million ethnic minorities were further resettled during 1940–52.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Soviet archives documented 390,000 deaths during kulak forced resettlement and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported to forced settlements during the 1940s; however, Nicolas Werth places overall deaths closer to some 1 to 1.5 million perishing as a result of the deportations. Contemporary historians classify these deportations as a crime against humanity and ethnic persecution. Two of these cases with the highest mortality rates, the deportation of the Crimean Tatars and the deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, were recognized as genocides by Ukraine, three other countries, and the European Parliament respectively. On 26 April 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, under its chairman Boris Yeltsin, passed the law On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples with Article 2 denouncing all mass deportations as "Stalin's policy of defamation and genocide."


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: The Soviet Union also practiced deportations in occupied territories, with over 50,000 perishing from the Baltic States and 300,000 to 360,000 perishing during the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe due to Soviet deportation, massacres, and internment and labour camps.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Kulaks were a group of relatively affluent farmers and had gone by this class system term in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. They were the most numerous group deported by the Soviet Union. Resettlement of people officially designated as "kulaks" continued until early 1950, including several major waves: on 5 September 1951 the Soviet government ordered the deportation of kulaks from the Lithuanian SSR for "hostile actions against kolhozes", which was one of the last resettlements of that social group.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Large numbers of kulaks, regardless of their nationality, were resettled in Siberia and Central Asia. According to data from Soviet archives, which were published in 1990, 1,803,392 people were sent to labor colonies and camps in 1930 and 1931, and 1,317,022 reached the destination. Deportations on a smaller scale continued after 1931. The reported number of kulaks and their relatives who died in labour colonies from 1932 to 1940 was 389,521. The total number of the deported people is disputed. Conservative estimates assume that 1,679,528-1,803,392 people were deported, while the highest estimates are that 15 million kulaks and their families were deported by 1937, and that during the deportation many people died, but the full number is not known.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: During the 1930s, categorisation of so-called enemies of the people shifted from the usual Marxist–Leninist, class-based terms, such as "kulak", to ethnic-based ones. The partial removal of potentially trouble-making ethnic groups was a technique used consistently by Joseph Stalin during his government; between 1935 and 1938 alone, at least ten different nationalities were deported. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union led to a massive escalation in Soviet ethnic cleansing.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: The Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union, originally conceived in 1926, initiated in 1930, and carried through in 1937, was the first mass transfer of an entire nationality in the Soviet Union. Almost the entire Soviet population of ethnic Koreans (171,781 persons) were forcibly moved from the Russian Far East to unpopulated areas of the Kazakh SSR and the Uzbek SSR in October 1937.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Looking at the entire period of Stalin's rule, one can list: Poles (1939–1941 and 1944–1945), Kola Norwegians (1940–1942), Romanians (1941 and 1944–1953), Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians (1941 and 1945–1949), Volga Germans (1941–1945), Ingrian Finns (1929–1931 and 1935–1939), Finnish people in Karelia (1940–1941, 1944), Crimean Tatars, Crimean Greeks (1944) and Caucasus Greeks (1949–50), Kalmyks, Balkars, Italians of Crimea, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, Karapapaks, Far East Koreans (1937), Chechens and Ingushs (1944). Shortly before, during and immediately after World War II, Stalin conducted a series of deportations on a huge scale which profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union. It is estimated that between 1941 and 1949 nearly 3.3 million were deported to Siberia and the Central Asian republics. By some estimates, up to 43% of the resettled population died of diseases and malnutrition.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Lavrentiy Beria, the Chief of NKVD, the Soviet secret police, was responsible for organizing and executing numerous deportations of ethnic minorities during that time.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: After the Soviet invasion of Poland following the corresponding German invasion that marked the start of World War II in 1939, the Soviet Union annexed eastern parts (known as "Kresy" to the Polish or as West Belarus and West Ukraine in the USSR and among Belarusians and Ukrainians) of the Second Polish Republic, which since then became western parts of the Belarusian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR. During 1939–1941, 1.45 million people inhabiting the region were deported by the Soviet regime. According to Polish historians, 63.1% of these people were Poles and 7.4% were Jews. Previously it was believed that about 1.0 million Polish citizens died at the hands of the Soviets, but recently Polish historians, based mostly on queries in Soviet archives, estimate the number of deaths at about 350,000 people deported in 1939–1945.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: The same followed in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (see Soviet deportations from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been deported from the Baltic in 1940–1953. In addition, at least 75,000 were sent to the Gulag. 10% of the entire adult Baltic population was deported or sent to labor camps. In 1989, native Latvians represented only 52% of the population of their own country. In Estonia, the figure was 62%. In Lithuania, the situation was better because the migrants sent to that country actually moved to the former area of Eastern Prussia (now Kaliningrad) which, contrary to the original plans, never became part of Lithuania.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Likewise, Romanians from Chernivtsi Oblast and Moldovia had been deported in great numbers which range from 200,000 to 400,000. (See Soviet deportations from Bessarabia.)


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: During World War II, particularly in 1943–44, the Soviet government conducted a series of deportations. Some 1.9 million people were deported to Siberia and the Central Asian republics. Treasonous collaboration with the invading Germans and anti-Soviet rebellion were the official reasons for these deportations. Out of approximately 183,000 Crimean Tatars, 20,000 or 10% of the entire population served in German battalions. Consequently, Tatars too were transferred "en masse" by the Soviets after the war. Vyacheslav Molotov justified this decision saying "The fact is that during the war we received reports about mass treason. Battalions of Caucasians opposed us at the fronts and attacked us from the rear. It was a matter of life and death; there was no time to investigate the details. Of course innocents suffered. But I hold that given the circumstances, we acted correctly." Historian Ian Grey writes "Towards the Moslem peoples, the Germans pursued a benign, almost paternalistic policy. The Karachai, Balkars, Ingush, Chechen, Kalmucks, and Tatars of the Crimea all displayed pro-German sympathies in some degree. It was only the hurried withdrawal of the Germans from the Caucasus after the battle of Stalingrad that prevented their organizing the Moslem people for effective anti-Soviet action. The Germans boasted loudly, however, that they had left a strong "fifth column" behind them in the Caucasus."


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Volga Germans and seven (non-Slavic) nationalities of the Crimea and the northern Caucasus were deported: the Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, and Meskhetian Turks. All Crimean Tatars were deported "en masse", in a form of collective punishment, on 18 May 1944 as special settlers to Uzbekistan and other distant parts of the Soviet Union. According to NKVD data, nearly 20% died in exile during the following year and a half. Crimean Tatar activists have reported this figure to be nearly 46%. (See Deportation of Crimean Tatars.)


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Other minorities evicted from the Black Sea coastal region included Bulgarians, Crimean Greeks, Romanians and Armenians.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: The Soviet Union also deported people from occupied territories such as the Baltic states, Poland, and territories occupied by Germans. A study published by the German government in 1974 estimated the number of German civilian victims of crimes during expulsion of Germans after World War II between 1945 and 1948 to be over 600,000, with about 400,000 deaths in the areas east of the Oder and Neisse (ca. 120,000 in acts of direct violence, mostly by Soviet troops but also by Poles, 60,000 in Polish and 40,000 in Soviet concentration camps or prisons mostly from hunger and disease, and 200,000 deaths among civilian deportees to forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union), 130,000 in Czechoslovakia (thereof 100,000 in camps) and 80,000 in Yugoslavia (thereof 15,000 to 20,000 from violence outside of and in camps and 59,000 deaths from hunger and disease in camps).


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: By January 1953, there were 988,373 special settlers residing in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, including 444,005 Germans, 244,674 Chechens, 95,241 Koreans, 80,844 Ingush, and the others. As a consequence of these deportations, Kazakhs comprised only 30% of their native Republic's population.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: After World War II, the German population of the Kaliningrad Oblast, former East Prussia was expelled and the depopulated area resettled by Soviet citizens, mainly by Russians.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Poland and Soviet Ukraine conducted population exchanges; Poles who resided east of the established Poland–Soviet border were deported to Poland (c.a. 2,100,000 persons) and Ukrainians that resided west of the established Poland-Soviet Union border were deported to Soviet Ukraine. Population transfer to Soviet Ukraine occurred from September 1944 to April 1946 (ca. 450,000 persons). Some Ukrainians (ca. 200,000 persons) left southeast Poland more or less voluntarily (between 1944 and 1945).


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: In February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev in his speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" condemned the deportations as a violation of Leninist principles:


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: According to a secret Soviet ministry of interior report dated December 1965, for the period 1940–1953, 46,000 people were deported from Moldova, 61,000 from Belarus, 571,000 from Ukraine, 119,000 from Lithuania, 53,000 from Latvia and 33,000 from Estonia.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Punitive transfers of population transfers handled by the Gulag and the system of forced settlements in the Soviet Union were planned in accordance with the needs of the colonization of the remote and underpopulated territories of the Soviet Union. (Their large scale has led to a controversial opinion in the West that the economic growth of the Soviet Union was largely based on the slave labor of Gulag prisoners.) At the same time, on a number of occasions the workforce was transferred by non-violent means, usually by means of "recruitment" ("вербовка"). This kind of recruitment was regularly performed at forced settlements, where people were naturally more willing to resettle. For example, the workforce of the Donbass and Kuzbass mining basins is known to have been replenished in this way. (As a note of historical comparison, in Imperial Russia the mining workers at state mines ("bergals", "бергалы", from German "Bergbau", 'mining') were often recruited in lieu of military service which, for a certain period, had a term of 25 years).


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: When the war ended in May 1945, millions of Soviet citizens were forcefully repatriated (against their will) into the USSR. On 11 February 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the United States and United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the USSR.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: The interpretation of this Agreement resulted in the forcible repatriation of all Soviet citizens regardless of their wishes. Allied authorities ordered their military forces in Europe to deport to the Soviet Union millions of former residents of the USSR (some of whom collaborated with the Germans), including numerous persons who had left Russia and established different citizenships for up to decades prior. The forced repatriation operations took place from 1945 to 1947.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: At the end of World War II, more than 5 million "displaced persons" from the Soviet Union survived in German captivity. About 3 million had been forced laborers (Ostarbeiter) in Germany and occupied territories.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Surviving POWs, about 1.5 million, repatriated "Ostarbeiter", and other displaced persons, totalling more than 4,000,000 people were sent to special NKVD filtration camps (not Gulag). By 1946, 80% civilians and 20% of PoWs were freed, 5% of civilians, and 43% of PoWs re-drafted, 10% of civilians and 22% of PoWs were sent to labor battalions, and 2% of civilians and 15% of the PoWs (226,127 out of 1,539,475 total) transferred to the NKVD, i.e. the Gulag.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Several historians, including Russian historian Pavel Polian and Lithuanian Associate Research Scholar at Yale University Violeta Davoliūtė consider these mass deportations of civilians a crime against humanity. They are also often described as Soviet ethnic cleansing. Terry Martin of Harvard University observes:


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Other academics and countries go further to call the deportations of the Crimean Tatars, Chechens and Ingushs genocide. Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer of Polish-Jewish descent who initiated the Genocide Convention and coined the term genocide himself, assumed that genocide was perpetrated in the context of the mass deportation of the Chechens, Ingush, Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks and Karachay. Professor Lyman H. Legters argued that the Soviet penal system, combined with its resettlement policies, should count as genocidal since the sentences were borne most heavily specifically on certain ethnic groups, and that a relocation of these ethnic groups, whose survival depended on ties to their particular homeland, "had a genocidal effect remediable only by restoration of the group to its homeland". Soviet dissidents Ilya Gabay and Pyotr Grigorenko both classified the population transfers of the Crimean Tatars as genocide. Historian Timothy Snyder included it in a list of Soviet policies that "meet the standard of genocide". French historian and expert on communist studies Nicolas Werth, German historian Philipp Ther, Professor Anthony James Joes, American journalist Eric Margolis, Canadian political scientist Adam Jones, professor of Islamic History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Brian Glyn Williams, scholars Michael Fredholm and Fanny E. Bryan also considered the population transfers of the Chechens and Ingush as the crime of genocide. German investigative journalist Lutz Kleveman compared the deportations of Chechens and Ingush to a "slow genocide".


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: On 12 December 2015, the Ukrainian Parliament issued a resolution recognizing the deportation of Crimean Tatars as genocide and established 18 May as the "Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Crimean Tatar genocide." The parliament of Latvia recognized the event as an act of genocide on 9 May 2019. The Parliament of Lithuania did the same on 6 June 2019. Canadian Parliament passed a motion on 10 June 2019, recognizing the Crimean Tatar deportation of 1944 (Sürgünlik) as a genocide perpetrated by Soviet dictator Stalin, designating 18 May to be a day of remembrance. The deportation of Chechens and Ingush was acknowledged by the European Parliament as an act of genocide in 2004:


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Experts of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum cited the events of 1944 for a reason of placing Chechnya on their genocide watch list for its potential for genocide. The separatist government of Chechnya also recognized it as genocide. Some academics disagree with the classification of deportation as genocide. Professor Alexander Statiev argues that Stalin's administration did not have a conscious genocidal intent to exterminate the various deported peoples, but that Soviet "political culture, poor planning, haste, and wartime shortages were responsible for the genocidal death rate among them." He rather considers these deportations an example of Soviet assimilation of "unwanted nations." According to Professor Amir Weiner, "...It was their territorial identity and not their physical existence or even their distinct ethnic identity that the regime sought to eradicate." According to Professor Francine Hirsch, "although the Soviet regime practiced politics of discrimination and exclusion, it did not practice what contemporaries thought of as "racial politics"." To her, these mass deportations were based on the concept that nationalities were "sociohistorical groups with a shared consciousness and not racial-biological groups". In contrast to this view, Jon K. Chang contends that the deportations had been in fact based on ethnicity and that "social historians" in the West have failed to champion the rights of marginalized ethnicities in the Soviet Union.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: The dominant view among historians of Russia and the USSR was and remains that of Harvard's Terry Martin and his theory of "Soviet xenophobia." This theory espouses the belief that the Soviet Union ethnically cleansed the border peoples of the USSR from 1937 to 1951 (including the Caucasus and the Crimea) to remove Soviet nationalities whose political allegiances were allegedly suspect or inimical to Soviet socialism. In this view, the USSR did not practice direct negative ethnic animus or discrimination ("In neither case did the Soviet state itself conceive of these deportations as ethnic."). Political ideology of all Soviet peoples was the primary consideration. Martin stated that the various deportations of the Soviet border peoples were simply the "culmination of a gradual shift from predominantly class-based terror" which began during collectivization (1932–33) to "national/ethnic" based terror (1937). Accordingly, Martin further claimed that the nationalities deportations were "ideological, not ethnic. It was spurred by an ideological hatred and suspicion of foreign capitalist governments, not the national hatred of non-Russians." His theory entitled "Soviet xenophobia" paints the USSR and the Stalinist regime as having practiced and carried out in politics, education and Soviet society relatively pure socialism and Marxist practices. This view has been supported by many of the major historians of the USSR, those in Russian and even Korean studies such as Fitzpatrick, Suny, F. Hirsch, A. Weiner and A. Park. A. Park, in her archival work, found very little evidence that Koreans had proven or were able to prove their loyalties beyond a shadow of a doubt, thus 'necessitating' deportation from the border areas.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: In contrast, the views of J. Otto Pohl and Jon K. Chang affirm that the Soviet Union, its officials and everyday citizens produced and reproduced (from the Tsarist era) racialized (primordialist) views, policies and tropes regarding their non-Slavic peoples. Norman M. Naimark believed that the Stalinist "nationalities deportations" were forms of national-cultural genocide. The deportations at the very least changed the cultures, way of life and world views of the deported peoples as the majority were sent to Soviet Central Asia and Siberia.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: "Primordialism" is simply another way of saying ethnic chauvinism or racism because the said "primordial" peoples or ethnic groups are seen as possessing "permanent" traits and characteristics, which they pass on, one generation to the next. Interestingly, both Chang and Martin agree that the Stalinist regime took a turn towards primordializing nationality in the 1930s. After the "primordialist turn" by the Stalinist regime in the mid-1930s, the Soviet Greeks, Finns, Poles, Chinese, Koreans, Germans, Crimean Tatars and the other deported peoples were seen to have loyalties to their "titular" nations (or to non-Soviet polities) as the Soviet state in the 1930s regarded nationality (ethnicity) and political loyalty (ideology) as a primordial equivalents. Thus, it was no surprise that the regime would choose "deportation."


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Martin's different interpretation is that the Soviet regime was not deporting the various diaspora peoples because of their nationality. Rather, nationality (ethnicity or phenotype) served as a referent or a signifier for the political ideology of the deported peoples. Amir Weiner's argument is similar to Martin's, substituting "territorial identity" for Martin's "xenophobia." The "Soviet xenophobia" argument also does not hold up semantically. Xenophobia is the fear by natives of invasion or loss of territory and influence to foreigners. The "Russians" and other Eastern Slavs are coming into the territory of the natives (the deported peoples) who were simply Soviet national minorities. They were not foreign elements. The Russian empire was not the "native" state, polity or government in the Asian Far East, the Caucasus and many other regions of the deported peoples. Koguryo followed by Parhae/Balhae/Bohai were the first states of the Russian Far East. John J. Stephan called the "erasure" of Chinese and Korean history (state-formation, cultural contributions, peoples) to the region by the USSR and Russia—the intentional "genesis of a 'blank spot.' "


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Chang notes that all forms of racism could be explained away in a like manner. Regardless, all of the Stalinist orders for "total deportation" of the thirteen nationalities (from 1937 to 1951) list each of the peoples by ethnicity as well as a charge of treason. Soviet law required that one's guilt or innocence (for treason) be determined individually and in a court of law prior to sentencing (per 1936 Constitution). Finally, on the other end of the "primordial" spectrum, the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) were seen as inherently more loyal and more representative of the Soviet people. This is clearly a deviation from socialism and Marxist-Leninism.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: The number of deaths attributed to deported people living in exile is considerable. The causes for such demographic catastrophe lie in harsh climates of Siberia and Kazakhstan, disease, malnutrition, work exploitation which lasted for up to 12 hours daily as well as the lack of any kind of appropriate housing or accommodation for the deported people. Overall, it is assumed that the fatalities caused by this relocation upheaval range from 800,000 up to 1,500,000.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: The partial documentation in the NKVD archives indicated that the mortality rates of these deported ethnic groups were considerable. The Meskhetian Turks had a 14.6% mortality rate, the Kalmyks 17.4%, people from Crimea 19.6%, while the Chechens, the Ingush and other people from the Northern Caucasus had the highest losses reaching 23.7%. The NKVD did not record excess deaths for the deported Soviet Koreans, but their mortality rate estimates range from 10% to 16.3%.


title: Population transfer in the Soviet Union

text: Additionally, around 300,000–360,000 Germans deported after World War II from occupied territories in Eastern Europe perished, but the Soviet Army was not the sole perpetrator of these expulsions, since other European countries also participated.


title: Silt

text: Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when dry, and lacks plasticity when wet. Silt also can be felt by the tongue as granular when placed on the front teeth (even when mixed with clay particles).


title: Silt

text: Silt is a common material, making up 45% of average modern mud. It is found in many river deltas and as wind-deposited accumulations, particularly in central Asia, north China, and North America. It is produced in both very hot climates (through such processes as collisions of quartz grains in dust storms) and very cold climates (through such processes as glacial grinding of quartz grains.)


title: Silt

text: Loess is soil rich in silt which makes up some of the most fertile agricultural land on Earth. However, silt is very vulnerable to erosion, and it has poor mechanical properties, making construction on silty soil problematic. The failure of the Teton Dam in 1976 has been attributed to the use of unsuitable loess in the dam core, and liquefication of silty soil is a significant earthquake hazard. Windblown and waterborne silt are significant forms of environmental pollution, often exacerbated by poor farming practices.


title: Silt

text: Silt is detritus (fragments of weathered and eroded rock) with properties intermediate between sand and clay. A more precise definition of silt used by geologists is that it is detrital particles with sizes between 1/256 and 1/16 mm (about 4 to 62 microns). This corresponds to particles between 8 and 4 phi units on the Krumbein phi scale. Other geologists define silt as detrital particles between 2 and 62 microns or 9 to 4 phi units. A third definition is that silt is fine-grained detrital material composed of quartz rather than clay minerals. Since most clay mineral particles are smaller than 2 microns, while most detrital particles between 2 and 62 microns in size are composed of broken quartz grains, there is good agreement between these definitions in practice.


title: Silt

text: The upper size limit of 1/256 mm or 62 microns corresponds to the smallest particles that can be discerned with the unaided eye. It also corresponds to a "Tanner gap" in the distribution of particle sizes in sediments: Particles between 120 and 30 microns in size are scarce in most sediments, suggesting that the distinction between sand and silt has physical significance. As noted above, the lower limit of 2 to 4 microns corresponds to the transition from particles that are predominantly broken quartz grains to particles that are predominantly clay mineral particles.


title: Silt

text: Assallay and coinvestigators further divide silt into three size ranges: C (2–5 microns), which represents post-glacial clays and desert dust; D1 (20–30 microns) representing "traditional" loess; and D2 (60 microns) representing the very coarse North African loess.


title: Silt

text: Silt can be distinguished from clay in the field by its lack of plasticity or cohesiveness and by its grain size. Silt grains are large enough to give silt a gritty feel, particularly if a sample is placed between the teeth. Clay-size particles feel smooth between the teeth. The proportions of coarse and fine silt in a sediment sample are determined more precisely in the laboratory using the pipette method, which is based on settling rate via Stokes' law and gives the particle size distribution accordingly. The mineral composition of silt particles can be determined with a petrographic microscope for grain sizes as low as 10 microns.


title: Silt

text: "Vadose silt" is silt-sized calcite crystals found in pore spaces and vugs in limestone. This is emplaced as sediment is carried through the vadose zone to be deposited in pore space.


title: Silt

text: Civil engineers in the United States define silt as material made of particles that pass a number 200 sieve (0.074 mm or less) but show little plasticity when wet and little cohesion when air-dried. The International Society of Soil Science (ISSS) defines silt as soil containing 80% or more of particles between 0.002 mm to 0.02 mm in size while the U.S. Department of Agriculture puts the cutoff at 0.05mm. The term "silt" is also used informally for material containing much sand and clay as well as silt-sized particles, or for mud suspended in water.


title: Silt

text: Silt is a very common material, and it has been estimated that there are a billion trillion trillion (10) silt grains worldwide. Silt is abundant in eolian and alluvial deposits, including river deltas, such as the Nile and Niger River deltas. Bangladesh is largely underlain by silt deposits of the Ganges delta. Silt is also abundant in northern China, central Asia, and North America. However, silt is relatively uncommon in the tropical regions of the world.


title: Silt

text: Silt is commonly found in suspension in river water, and it makes up over 0.2% of river sand. It is abundant in the matrix between the larger sand grains of graywackes. Modern mud has an average silt content of 45%. Silt is often found in mudrock as thin laminae, as clumps, or dispersed throughout the rock. Laminae suggest deposition in a weak current that winnows the silt of clay, while clumps suggest an origin as fecal pellets. Where silt is dispersed throughout the mudrock, it likely was deposited by rapid processes, such as flocculation. Sedimentary rock composed mainly of silt is known as siltstone.


title: Silt

text: Silt is common throughout the geologic record, but it seems to be particularly common in Quaternary formations. This may be because deposition of silt is favored by the glaciation and arctic conditions characteristic of the Quaternary. Silt is sometimes known as "rock flour" or "glacier meal", especially when produced by glacial action. Silt suspended in water draining from glaciers is sometimes known as "rock milk" or "moonmilk".


title: Silt

text: A simple explanation for silt formation is that it is a straightforward continuation to a smaller scale of the disintegration of rock into gravel and sand. However, the presence of a Tanner gap between sand and silt (a scarcity of particles with sizes between 30 and 120 microns) suggests that different physical processes produce sand and silt. The mechanisms of silt formation have been studied extensively in the laboratory and compared with field observations. These show that silt formation requires high-energy processes acting over long periods of time, but such processes are present in diverse geologic settings.


title: Silt

text: Quartz silt grains are usually found to have a platy or bladed shape. This may be characteristic of how larger grains abrade, or reflect the shape of small quartz grains in foliated metamorphic rock, or arise from authigenic growth of quartz grains parallel to bedding in sedimentary rock. Theoretically, particles formed by random fracturing of an isotropic material, such as quartz, naturally tend to be blade-shaped. The size of silt grains produced by abrasion or shattering of larger grains may reflect defects in the crystal structure of the quartz, known as "Moss defects." Such defects are produced by tectonic deformation of the parent rock, and also arise from the high-low transition of quartz: Quartz experiences a sharp decrease in volume when it cools below a temperature of about , which creates strain and crystal defects in the quartz grains in a cooling body of granite.


title: Silt

text: Laboratory experiments have produced contradictory results regarding the effectiveness of various silt production mechanisms. This may be due to the use of vein or pegmatite quartz in some of the experiments. Both materials form under conditions promoting ideal crystal growth, and may lack the Moss defects of quartz grains in granites. Thus production of silt from vein quartz is very difficult by any mechanism, whereas production of silt from granite quartz proceeds readily by any of a number of mechanisms. However, the main process is likely abrasion through transport, including fluvial comminution, aeolian attrition and glacial grinding.


title: Silt

text: Because silt deposits (such as "loess", a soil composed mostly of silt) seem to be associated with glaciated or mountainous regions in Asia and North America, much emphasis has been placed on glacial grinding as a source of silt. High Asia has been identified as a major generator of silt, which accumulated to form the fertile soils of north India and Bangladesh, and the loess of central Asia and north China. Loess has long been though to be absent or rare in deserts lacking nearby mountains (Sahara, Australia). However, laboratory experiments show eolian and fluvial processes can be quite efficient at producing silt, as can weathering in tropical climates. Silt seems to be produced in great quantities in dust storms, and silt deposits found Israel, Tunisia, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia cannot be attributed to glaciation. Furthemore, desert source areas in Asia may be more important for loess formation than previously thought. Part of the problem may be the conflation of high rates of production with environments conducive to deposition and preservation, which favors glacial climates more than deserts.


title: Silt

text: Loess associated with glaciation and cold weathering may be distinguishable from loess associated with hot regions by the size distribution. Glacial loess has a typical particle size of about 25 microns. Desert loess contains either larger or smaller particles, with the fine silt produced in dust storms and the coarse silt fraction possibly representing the fine particle tail of sand production.


title: Silt

text: Loess underlies some of the most productive agricultural land worldwide. However, it is very susceptible to erosion. The quartz particles in silt do not themselves provide nutrients, but they promote excellent soil structure, and silt-sized particles of other minerals, present in smaller amounts, provide the necessary nutrients. Silt, deposited by annual floods along the Nile River, created the rich, fertile soil that sustained the Ancient Egyptian civilization. The closure of the Aswan High Dam has cut off this source of silt, and the fertility of the Nile delta is deteriorating.


title: Silt

text: Loess tends to lose strength when wetted, and this can lead to failure of building foundations. The silty material has an open structure that collapses when wet. Quick clay (a combination of very fine silt and clay-sized particles from glacial grinding) is a particular challenge for civil engineering.


title: Silt

text: The failure of the Teton Dam has been attributed to the use of loess from the Snake River floodplain in the core of the dam. Loess lacks the necessary plasticity for use in a dam core, but its properties were poorly understood, even by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, with its wealth of experience building earthen dams.


title: Silt

text: Silt is susceptible to liquefaction during strong earthquakes due to its lack of plasticity. This has raised concerns about the earthquake damage potential in the silty soil of the central United States in the event of a major earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.


title: Silt

text: Silt is easily transported in water and is fine enough to be carried long distances by air in the form of dust. While the coarsest silt particles (60 micron) settle out of a meter of still water in just five minutes, the finest silt grains (2 microns) can take several days to settle out of still water. When silt appears as a pollutant in water the phenomenon is known as siltation.


title: Silt

text: Silt deposited by the Mississippi River throughout the 20th century has decreased due to a system of levees, contributing to the disappearance of protective wetlands and barrier islands in the delta region surrounding New Orleans.


title: Silt

text: In southeast Bangladesh, in the Noakhali district, cross dams were built in the 1960s whereby silt gradually started forming new land called "chars". The district of Noakhali has gained more than of land in the past 50 years. With Dutch funding, the Bangladeshi government began to help develop older chars in the late 1970s, and the effort has since become a multi-agency operation building roads, culverts, embankments, cyclone shelters, toilets and ponds, as well as distributing land to settlers. By fall 2010, the program will have allotted some to 21,000 families.


title: Silt

text: A main source of silt in urban rivers is disturbance of soil by construction activity. A main source in rural rivers is erosion from plowing of farm fields, clearcutting or slash and burn treatment of forests.


title: Silt

text: The fertile black silt of the Nile river's banks is a symbol of rebirth, associated with the Egyptian god Anubis.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: The Campeonato Paulista Série A1, commonly known as Campeonato Paulista, nicknamed Paulistão, is the top-flight professional football league in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. Run by the FPF, the league is contested between 16 clubs and typically lasts from January to April. Rivalries amongst four of the best-known Brazilian teams (Corinthians, Palmeiras, Santos and São Paulo) have marked the history of the competition. The Campeonato Paulista is the oldest established league in Brazil, being held since 1902 and professionally since 1933.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: Campeonato Paulista is held annually by the Federação Paulista de Futebol (São Paulo State Football Federation), or FPF, amongst teams residing within the state of São Paulo. 20 clubs compete in the highest level of the championship (Série A1). In a new format starting in 2007, each team plays the others once in a round-robin format, followed by a four-team playoff with home-and-away series. In addition, teams that finish the regular season in places 5 through 8 (that do not reside within the city of São Paulo or Santos) will compete in a playoff for the title of "Campeão do Interior" (Upstate Champion). The four lowest placed teams are relegated to the lower competition (Série A2) for the following year.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: Série A2 is contested by 20 teams in three separate phases. In Phase One, the teams are split into two groups, playing each other twice in a home-and-home series. The bottom two from each group are relegated to Série A3; the top four advance to Phase Two. Phase two consists of the eight advancing teams organized into groups, repeating the home-and-home series within the group. The top two placed teams from each group are promoted to Série A1; each top team advances to Phase Three, a single championship game to determine the tournament winner.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: Série A3 consists of 20 teams competing in a three phase format similar to Série A2. Promotion and relegation rules are the same as in this higher level.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: The Second Division (Série B) matches are held by minor teams during the Brazilian league. The number of teams involved varies, with 45 participants in 2011. Top four teams are promoted to Série A3.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: Charles Miller was responsible for the creation of the first São Paulo state tournament. Miller introduced the football association rules to Brazil upon his return from England, where he attended college and discovered the sport. On December 14, 1901, the Liga Paulista de Foot-Ball (Paulista Football League), or LPF was founded, comprising five initial teams: São Paulo Athletic Club, Internacional, Mackenzie, Germânia, and Paulistano. Between April and October 1902, those teams competed in the first edition of the tournament, with São Paulo AC winning the title and Miller himself as the leading goalscorer. Unlike in Argentina and Uruguay, football was restricted to elitist clubs in its early days in Brazil.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: Football popularity grew in following years. Paulistano, a club composed of the children of the richest families of São Paulo, became the strongest team. However, the popularity base of the sport started to change after a brilliant exhibition tour by the Corinthians, a London amateur team, in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. They easily defeated the best Brazilian teams of the time and made a very favorable impression amongst the younger fans. Shortly thereafter, a group of workers were inspired to found the city's first popular team, Sport Club Corinthians Paulista.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: Growth of football popularity amongst lower classes generated a rift in the LPF. Their directors had defended that football should remain an elitist sport. This difference in opinion led to creation of another competing league, the Associação Paulista de Esportes Atléticos (Paulista Association of Athletic Sports), APEA, which promoted the sport among all social classes. Corinthians and Palestra Itália (a new club founded by Italian immigrants), and Paulistano helped to comprise the new league.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: The LPF ceased operation in 1917. Until 1926, the APEA remained the only league in São Paulo. Stronger teams, larger crowds and players such Neco (Corinthians) and Arthur Friedenreich (Paulistano) contributed to the "footballmania" that converted football from "foreigner's fun" to Brazil's most popular sport. Debates surrounded the issue of whether football should professionalize or remain a purely amateur endeavor. Paulistano, the most trophied team at the time, refused to become professional and departed in 1925 to create the Liga de Amadores de Futebol (League of Football Amateurs) [LAF]. Competition between the two leagues fueled expansion of the teams, as clubs from upstate began to join.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: By 1930, the LAF and Paulistano had folded, and a new era for São Paulo football began. Players became professionals in 1933 when Bandeirante Football League was created. Corinthians and Palestra Itália assumed their positions as the most powerful and popular teams. A new club emerges to compete for the hearts of supporters. Some dissidents from Paulistano, favorable to professionalization, along with the directors of AA Palmeiras united to form São Paulo Futebol Clube, the third force of the city.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: The APEA had ceased operations in 1938, and after several name changes, the original Bandeirante Football League officially became the Federação Paulista de Futebol (Paulista Football Federation), [FPF] on April 22, 1941. São Paulo signed Leonidas da Silva in the following year and won five of the next eight championships. Palestra Itália change its name to Palmeiras in 1943 due to a World War II period law that banned Axis Powers's references in sport. Football grows within the state and a second division is created in 1948, allowing upstate teams to take part in major league competition. XV de Novembro from Piracicaba was the first team promoted to the top flight.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: São Paulo, Palmeiras and Corinthians dominated titles in early 1950s. Santos, although having competed consistently, would need to wait a few more years to gain top status. 1957 saw the debut of one of football's greatest players, Pelé. His goals helped Santos to win nine of the next twelve championships. Pelé was the league top scorer in every year between 1957 and 1965 including a record 58 goals in a single season. Santos won numerous competitions at the state, national, regional and international level. Palmeiras's ""Academia"" teams were the only ones able to break such dominance in the sixties.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: Since the 1960s, Brazil began to develop more mature national competitions which competed with the state and regional tournaments for supporter's attention. In 1977, Corinthians' were able to win a title after a 24-year drought, and the early eighties saw the battle between Corinthians (led by Sócrates) and São Paulo's (Serginho Chulapa). The ""Corinthians Democracy"" won in 1982 and 1983 while introducing a new philosophy in club management, where players participate in all decisions with management. São Paulo became the most successful team of the decade, winning the championship in 1980, 1981, 1985, 1987 and 1989. The last years saw the emergence of players such as Müller and Silas (known as the "Menudos do Morumbi") on that team. Internacional from Limeira accomplished a great upset in 1986 by defeating Palmeiras to win the final.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: Bragantino vs. Novorizontino was the final in the 1990 championship in the Paulistão's biggest ever upset. Palmeiras' fans saw their club win the 1993, 1994 and 1996 championships with the greatest Brazilian squad of the decade. Rivaldo, Roberto Carlos, Edmundo, César Sampaio are among the members of the "Green Machine" which scored 100 goals in the 1996 tournament. Corinthians conquered the trophy five times in the 1995–2003 period, thus becoming the most successful team in the first 100 years of the Campeonato Paulista, with 25 titles.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: Since 2000, Campeonato Paulista has lost popularity with each year. The main São Paulo state teams treat the tournament as tune-ups for the more lucrative Copa Libertadores and Brazilian National Championship. However, the Paulistão, as well as the other state tournaments in Brazil, still hold significance by providing developing talent and sustaining grass-roots soccer within the state.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: Due to the COVID-19 death toll has reached an unprecedented levels across the country, the government decided to subspened the championship from 15 March 2021 till 30 March 2021 aiming to stop the spread of the coronavirus.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: On September 23, 2021, the São Paulo Football Federation recognizes the São Paulo titles of 1933 and 1934, to Albion and Juventus respectively.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: In 2002, the FPF organized the Super Championship with the top 3 teams in the 2002 Rio-São Paulo Tournament (Corinthians, São Paulo and Palmeiras) and the 2002 Paulista Champions (Ituano). São Paulo won the Championship.


title: Campeonato Paulista

text: The competition, held since 2007, is played in two-legged semifinals and final by the four best placed countryside São Paulo state clubs that did not reach the semifinal stage of the Campeonato Paulista in the season. Which in turn, is the 5th to 8th place of the first stage of Campeonato Paulista, except the teams from the city of São Paulo and also including Santos.


title: Jury trial

text: A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions.


title: Jury trial

text: Jury trials are used in a significant share of serious criminal cases in many but not all common law judicial systems. The majority of common law jurisdictions in Asia (such as Singapore, India, Pakistan and Malaysia) have abolished jury trials on the grounds that juries are susceptible to bias. Juries or lay judges have also been incorporated into the legal systems of many civil law countries for criminal cases. Only the United States makes routine use of jury trials in a wide variety of non-criminal cases. Other common law legal jurisdictions use jury trials only in a very select class of cases that make up a tiny share of the overall civil docket (like malicious prosecution and false imprisonment suits in England and Wales), but true civil jury trials are almost entirely absent elsewhere in the world. Some civil law jurisdictions, however, have arbitration panels where non-legally trained members decide cases in select subject-matter areas relevant to the arbitration panel members' areas of expertise.


title: Jury trial

text: The use of jury trials, which evolved within common law systems rather than civil law systems, has had a profound impact on the nature of American civil procedure and criminal procedure rules, even if a bench trial is actually contemplated in a particular case. In general, the availability of a jury trial if properly demanded has given rise to a system in which fact finding is concentrated in a single trial rather than multiple hearings, and appellate review of trial court decisions is greatly limited. Jury trials are of far less importance (or of no importance) in countries that do not have a common law system.


title: Jury trial

text: Ancient Athens had a mechanism, called "dikastaí", to assure that no one could select jurors for their own trial. For normal cases, the courts were made up of "dikastai" of up to 500 citizens. For capital cases—those that involved death, loss of liberty, exile, loss of civil rights, or seizure of property—the trial was before a jury of 1,001 to 1,501 "dikastai". In such large juries, they rule by majority. Juries were appointed by lot. Jurists cast a ceramic disk with an axle in its middle: the axle was either hollow or solid. Thus the way they voted was kept secret because the jurists would hold their disk by the axle by thumb and forefinger, thus hiding whether its axle was hollow or solid. Since Periclean times, jurists were compensated for their sitting in court, with the amount of one day's wages.


title: Jury trial

text: The institution of trial by jury was ritually depicted by Aeschylus in "The Eumenides", the third and final play of his "Oresteia" trilogy. In the play, the innovation is brought about by the goddess Athena, who summons twelve citizens to sit as jury. The god Apollo takes part in the trial as the advocate for the defendant Orestes and the Furies as prosecutors for the slain Clytemnestra. In the event the jury is split six to six, Athena dictates that the verdict should henceforth be for acquittal.


title: Jury trial

text: From the beginning of the republic and in the majority of civil cases towards the end of the empire, there were tribunals with the characteristics of the jury in the sense that Roman judges were civilian, lay and not professionals. Capital trials were held in front of hundreds or thousands of 'juries' in the commitias or centuries, the same as in Athenian trials. Roman law provided for the yearly selection of judices, who would be responsible for resolving disputes by acting as jurors, with a praetor performing many of the duties of a judge. High government officials and their relatives were barred from acting as judices, due to conflicts of interest. Those previously found guilty of serious crimes (felonies) were also barred as were gladiators for hire, who likely were hired to resolve disputes through trial by combat. The law was as follows:


title: Jury trial

text: In classical Islamic jurisprudence, litigants in court may obtain notarized statements from between three and twelve witnesses. When the statements of all witnesses are consistent, the notaries will certify their unanimous testimony in a legal document, which may be used to support the litigant's claim. The notaries serve to free the judge from the time-consuming task of hearing the testimony of each eyewitness himself, and their documents serve to legally authenticate each oral testimony. The Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence requires two notaries to collect a minimum of twelve eyewitness statements in certain legal cases, including those involving unregistered marriages and land disputes. John Makdisi has compared this to English Common Law jury trials under King Henry II, surmising a link between the king’s reforms and the legal system of the Kingdom of Sicily.


title: Jury trial

text: A Swabian ordinance of 1562 called for the summons of jurymen ('), and various methods were in use in Emmendingen, Oppenau, and Oberkirch. Hauenstein's charter of 1442 secured the right to be tried in all cases by 24 fellow equals, and in Freiburg the jury was composed of 30 citizens and councilors. The modern jury trial was first introduced in the Rhenish provinces in 1798, with a court consisting most commonly of 12 citizens (').


title: Jury trial

text: The system whereby citizens were tried by their peers chosen from the entire community in open court was gradually superseded by a system of professional judges in Germany, in which the process of investigation was more or less confidential and judgements were issued by judges appointed by the state. In Constance the jury trial was suppressed by decree of the Habsburg monarchy in 1786. The Frankfurt Constitution of the failed Revolutions of 1848 called for jury trials for "the more serious crimes and all political offenses", but was never implemented after the Frankfurt Parliament was dissolved by Württemberg dragoons. An 1873 draft on criminal procedure produced by the Prussian Ministry of Justice proposed to abolish the jury and replace it with the mixed system, causing a significant political debate. In the Weimar Republic the jury was abolished by the Emminger Reform of 4 January 1924.


title: Jury trial

text: Between 1948 and 1950 in American-occupied Germany and the Federal Republic of Germany, Bavaria returned to the jury trial as it had existed before the 1933 emergency decrees, but they were again abolished by the 1950 Unification Act ("") for the Federal Republic. In 1979, the United States tried the East German LOT Flight 165 hijacking suspects in the United States Court for Berlin in West Berlin, which declared the defendants had the right to a jury trial under the United States Constitution, and hence were tried by a West German jury.


title: Jury trial

text: According to George Macaulay Trevelyan in "A Shortened History of England", during the Viking occupation: "The Scandinavians, when not on the Viking warpath, were a litigious people and loved to get together in the "thing" [governing assembly] to hear legal argument. They had no professional lawyers, but many of their farmer-warriors, like Njáll Þorgeirsson, the truth-teller, were learned in folk custom and in its intricate judicial procedure. A Danish town in England often had, as its main officers, twelve hereditary 'law men.' The Danes introduced the habit of making committees among the free men in court, which perhaps made England favorable ground for the future growth of the jury system out of a Frankish custom later introduced by the Normans."


title: Jury trial

text: The English king Æthelred the Unready set up an early legal system through the Wantage Code of Ethelred, one provision of which stated that the twelve leading thegns (minor nobles) of each wapentake (a small district) were required to swear that they would investigate crimes without a bias. These juries differed from the modern sort by being self-informing; instead of getting information through a trial, the jurors were required to investigate the case themselves.


title: Jury trial

text: In the 12th century, Henry II took a major step in developing the jury system. Henry II set up a system to resolve land disputes using juries. A jury of twelve free men were assigned to arbitrate in these disputes. As with the Saxon system, these men were charged with uncovering the facts of the case on their own rather than listening to arguments in court. Henry II also introduced what is now known as the "grand jury" through his Assize of Clarendon. Under the assize, a jury of free men was charged with reporting any crimes that they knew of in their hundred to a "justice in eyre", a judge who moved between hundreds on a circuit. A criminal accused by this jury was given a trial by ordeal.


title: Jury trial

text: The Church banned participation of clergy in trial by ordeal in 1215. Without the legitimacy of religion, trial by ordeal collapsed. The juries under the assizes began deciding guilt as well as providing accusations. The same year, trial by jury became an explicit right in one of the most influential clauses of Magna Carta. Article 39 of the Magna Carta read:


title: Jury trial

text: Although it says "and or by the law of the land", this in no manner can be interpreted as if it were enough to have a positive law, made by the king, to be able to proceed legally against a citizen. The law of the land was the consuetudinary law, based on the customs and consent of John's subjects, and since they did not have Parliament in those times, this meant that neither the king nor the barons could make a law without the consent of the people.


title: Jury trial

text: According to some sources, in the time of Edward III, "by the law of the land" had been substituted "by due process of law", which in those times was a trial by twelve peers.


title: Jury trial

text: During the mid-14th century, persons who had sat on the Presenting Jury (i.e., in modern parlance, the grand jury) were forbidden to sit on the trial jury for that crime. 25 Edward III stat 5., c3 (1353). Medieval juries were self-informing, in that individuals were chosen as jurors because they either knew the parties and the facts, or they had the duty to discover them. This spared the government the cost of fact-finding. Over time, English juries became less self-informing and relied more on the trial itself for information on the case. Jurors remained free to investigate cases on their own until the 17th century. Magna Carta being forgotten after a succession of benevolent reigns (or, more probably, reigns limited by the jury and the barons, and only under the rule of laws that the juries and barons found acceptable), the kings, through the royal judges, began to extend their control over the jury and the kingdom. In David Hume's "History of England", he tells something of the powers that the kings had accumulated in the times after Magna Carta, the prerogatives of the crown and the sources of great power with which these monarchs counted:


title: Jury trial

text: The first paragraph of the Act that abolished the Star Chamber repeats the clause on the right of a citizen to be judged by his peers:


title: Jury trial

text: In 1670 two Quakers charged with unlawful assembly, William Penn and William Mead, were found not guilty by a jury. The judge then fined the jury for contempt of court for returning a verdict contrary to their own findings of fact and removed them to prison until the fine was paid. Edward Bushel, a member of the jury, nonetheless refused to pay the fine.


title: Jury trial

text: Bushel petitioned the Court of Common Pleas for a writ of "habeas corpus". The ruling in the "Bushel's Case" was that a jury could not be punished simply on account of the verdict it returned.


title: Jury trial

text: Many British colonies, including the United States, adopted the English common law system in which trial by jury is an important part. Jury trials in criminal cases were a protected right in the original United States Constitution and the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments of the U.S. Constitution extend the rights to trial by jury to include the right to jury trial for both criminal and civil matters and a grand jury for serious cases.


title: Jury trial

text: In most common law jurisdictions, the jury is responsible for finding the facts of the case, while the judge determines the law. These "peers of the accused" are responsible for listening to a dispute, evaluating the evidence presented, deciding on the facts, and making a decision in accordance with the rules of law and their jury instructions. Typically, the jury only judges guilt or a verdict of not guilty, but the actual penalty is set by the judge. An interesting innovation was introduced in Russia in the judicial reform of Alexander II: unlike in modern jury trials, jurors decided not only whether the defendant was guilty or not guilty, but they had a third choice: "Guilty, but not to be punished", since Alexander II believed that justice without morality was wrong.


title: Jury trial

text: In France and some countries organized in the same fashion, the jury and several professional judges sit together to determine guilt first. Then, if guilt is determined, they decide the appropriate penalty.


title: Jury trial

text: Some jurisdictions with jury trials allow the defendant to waive their right to a jury trial, thus leading to a bench trial. Jury trials tend to occur only when a crime is considered serious. In some jurisdictions, such as France and Brazil, jury trials are reserved, and compulsory, for the most severe crimes and are not available for civil cases. In Brazil, for example, trials by jury are applied in cases of voluntary crimes against life, such as first and second degree murder, forced abortion and instigation of suicide, even if only attempted. In others, jury trials are only available for criminal cases and very specific civil cases (malicious prosecution, civil fraud and false imprisonment). In the United States, jury trials are available in both civil and criminal cases. In Canada, an individual charged with an indictable offence may elect to be tried by a judge alone in a provincial court, by judge alone in a superior court, or by judge and jury in a superior court; summary offences cannot be tried by jury. In England and Wales, offences are classified as summary, indictable, or either way; jury trials are not available for summary offences (using instead a summary proceeding with a panel of three lay magistrates or a district judge sitting alone), unless they are tried alongside indictable or either way offences that are themselves tried by jury, but the defendant has a right to demand trial by jury for either way offences. The situation is similar in Scotland; whereas in Northern Ireland even summary offences carry a right to jury trial, with some exceptions.


title: Jury trial

text: In the United States, because jury trials tend to be high profile, the general public tends to overestimate the frequency of jury trials. Approximately 150,000 jury trials are conducted in state courts annually, and an additional 5,000 jury trials are conducted in federal courts. Two thirds of jury trials are criminal trials, while one-third are civil and "other" (e.g., family, municipal ordinance, traffic). Nevertheless, the vast majority of criminal cases are settled by plea bargain, which bypasses the jury trial.


title: Jury trial

text: Some commentators contend that the guilty-plea system unfairly coerces defendants into relinquishing their right to a jury trial. Others contend that there never was a golden age of jury trials, but rather that juries in the early nineteenth century (before the rise of plea bargaining) were "unwitting and reflexive, generally wasteful of public resources and, because of the absence of trained professionals, little more than slow guilty pleas themselves", and that the guilty-plea system that emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century was a superior, more cost-effective method of achieving fair outcomes.


title: Jury trial

text: In countries where jury trials are common, juries are often seen as an important separation of powers. Another common assertion about the benefits of trial by jury is that it provides a means of educating citizens about government. Many also believe that a jury is likely to provide a more sympathetic hearing, or a fairer one, to a party who is not part of the government—or other establishment interest—than representatives of the state might.


title: Jury trial

text: This last point may be disputed. For example, in highly emotional cases, such as child rape, the jury may be tempted to convict based on personal feelings rather than on conviction beyond reasonable doubt. In France, former attorney, then later Minister of Justice Robert Badinter, remarked about jury trials in France that they were like "riding a ship into a storm", because they are much less predictable than bench trials.


title: Jury trial

text: Another issue with jury trials is the potential for jurors to exhibit discrimination. Infamous cases include the Scottsboro Boys, a group of nine African-American teenagers accused of raping two White American women on a train in 1931, for which they were indicted by an all-white jury, the acquittal of two white men Roy Bryant and J. W. Milan by an all-white jury for the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 (they admitted killing him in a magazine interview a year later), and the 1992 trial in the Rodney King case in California, in which white police officers were acquitted of excessive force in the beating of King, an African-American man. The jury consisted mostly of white people, and there were no African-American jurors.


title: Jury trial

text: The positive belief about jury trials in the UK and the U.S. contrasts with popular belief in many other nations, in which it is considered bizarre and risky for a person's fate to be put into the hands of untrained laymen. In Japan, for instance, which used to have optional jury trials for capital or other serious crimes between 1928 and 1943, the defendant could freely choose whether to have a jury or trial by judges, and the decisions of the jury were non-binding. During the Tojo regime this was suspended, arguably stemming from the popular belief that any defendant who risks his fate on the opinions of untrained laymen is almost certainly guilty.


title: Jury trial

text: One issue that has been raised is the ability of a jury to fully understand evidence. It has been said that the expectation of jury members as to the explanatory power of scientific evidence has been raised by TV police procedural and legal dramas, in what is known as the 'CSI effect' (after the ). In at least one English trial the misuse or misunderstanding or misrepresentation by the prosecution of statistics has led to wrongful conviction.


title: Jury trial

text: Argentina is one of the first countries in Latin America that has implemented trial by jury. Although it has a civil law process, since November 2015, it has a jury system for serious criminal cases.


title: Jury trial

text: Section 80 of the Australian Constitution provides that: "The trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury, and every such trial shall be held in the State where the offence was committed, and if the offence was not committed within any State the trial shall be held at such place or places as the Parliament prescribes.


title: Jury trial

text: The first trials by civilian juries of 12 in the colony of New South Wales were held in 1824, following a decision of the NSW Supreme Court on 14 October 1824. The NSW Constitution Act of 1828 effectively terminated trial by jury for criminal matters. Jury trials for criminal matters revived with the passing of the Jury Trials Amending Act of 1833 (NSW) (2 William IV No 12).


title: Jury trial

text: The "voir dire" system of examining the jury pool before selection is not permitted in Australia as it violates the privacy of jurors. Therefore, though it exists, the right to challenge for cause during jury selection cannot be employed much. Peremptory challenges are usually based on the hunches of counsel and no reason is needed to use them. All Australian states allow for peremptory challenges in jury selection; however, the number of challenges granted to the counsels in each state are not all the same. Until 1987 New South Wales had twenty peremptory challenges for each side where the offence was murder, and eight for all other cases. In 1987 this was lowered to three peremptory challenges per side, the same amount allowed in South Australia. Eight peremptory challenges are allowed for both counsels for all offences in Queensland. Victoria, Tasmania and the Northern Territory allow for six. Western Australia allows three peremptory challenges per side unless there is more than one accused in which case the prosecution can peremptorily challenge 3 times the number of accused and each accused has 3 peremptory challenges.


title: Jury trial

text: In Australia majority verdicts are allowed in South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, New South Wales and Queensland, while the ACT require unanimous verdicts. Since 1927 South Australia has permitted majority verdicts of 11:1, and 10:1 or 9:1 where the jury has been reduced, in criminal trials if a unanimous verdict cannot be reached in four hours. They are accepted in all cases except for "guilty" verdicts where the defendant is on trial for murder or treason. Victoria has accepted majority verdicts with the same conditions since 1994, though deliberations must go on for six hours before a majority verdict can be made. Western Australia accepted majority verdicts in 1957 for all trials except where the crime is murder or has a life sentence. A 10:2 verdict is accepted. Majority verdicts of 10:2 have been allowed in Tasmania since 1936 for all cases except murder and treason if a unanimous decision has not been made within two hours. Since 1943 verdicts of "not guilty" for murder and treason have also been included, but must be discussed for six hours. The Northern Territory has allowed majority verdicts of 10:2, 10:1 and 9:1 since 1963 and does not discriminate between cases whether the charge is murder or not. Deliberation must go for at least six hours before delivering a majority verdict. The Queensland "Jury Act 1995" (s 59F) allows majority verdicts for all crimes except for murder and other offences that carry a life sentence, although only 11:1 or 10:1 majorities are allowed. Majority verdicts were introduced in New South Wales in 2006. In New South Wales, a majority verdict can only be returned if the jury consists of at least 11 jurors and the deliberation has occurred for at least 8 hours or for a period that the court considers reasonable having regard to the nature and complexity of the case. Additionally, the court must be satisfied through examination of one or more of the jurors on oath, that a unanimous verdict will not be reached if further deliberation were to occur.


title: Jury trial

text: Austria, in common with a number of European civil law jurisdictions, retains elements of trial by jury in serious criminal cases.


title: Jury trial

text: Belgium, in common with a number of European civil law jurisdictions, retains the trial by jury through the Court of Assize for serious criminal cases and for political crimes and for press delicts (except those based on racism or xenophobia), and for crimes of international law, such as genocide and crime against humanity.


title: Jury trial

text: Under Canadian law, a person has the constitutional right to a jury trial for all crimes punishable by five years of imprisonment or more. The Criminal Code also provides for the right to a jury trial for most indictable offences, including those punishable by less than five years' imprisonment, though the right is only constitutionally enshrined for those offences punishable by five years' imprisonment or more. Generally, it is the accused person who is entitled to elect whether their trial will proceed by judge alone or by judge and jury; however, for the most severe criminal offences—murder, treason, intimidating Parliament, inciting to mutiny, sedition, and piracy—trial by jury is mandatory unless the prosecution consents to trial by judge alone.


title: Jury trial

text: Criminal Code Section 642(1): If a full jury and alternate jurors cannot be provided, the court may order the sheriff or other proper officer, at the request of the prosecutor, to summon without delay as many people as the court directs for the purpose of providing a full jury and alternate jurors.


title: Jury trial

text: Section 642(3): The names of the people who are summoned under this Section shall be added to the general panel for the purposes of the trial, and the same proceedings with respect to calling, challenging, excusing and directing them shall apply to them.


title: Jury trial

text: According to the case of "R v Mid-Valley Tractor Sales Limited" (1995 CarswellNB 313), there are limitations on the powers granted by Section 642. These powers are conferred specifically upon the judge, and the section does not confer a further discretion to delegate that power to others, such as the sheriff's officer, even with the consent of counsel. The Court said that to hold otherwise would nullify the rights of the accused and the prosecution to object to a person being excused inappropriately, and may also interfere with the rights of the parties to challenge for cause. The selection of an impartial jury is the basis of a fair trial.


title: Jury trial

text: The Supreme Court of Canada also held in "Basarabas and Spek v The Queen" (1982 SCR 730) that the right of an accused to be present in court during the whole of his trial includes the jury selection process.


title: Jury trial

text: In "Tran v The Queen" (1994 2 SCR 951), it was held that an accused only has to show that they were excluded from a part of the trial that affected their vital interests, they do not have to demonstrate actual prejudice, just the potential for prejudice. As well, a valid waiver of such a right must be clear, unequivocal and done with full knowledge of the rights that the procedure was enacted to protect, as well as the effect that the waiver will have on those rights.


title: Jury trial

text: In France, a defendant is entitled to a jury trial only when prosecuted for a felony ("crime" in French). Crimes encompass all offenses that carry a penalty of at least 10 years' imprisonment (for natural persons) or a fine of €75,000 (for legal persons). The only court that tries by jury is the "cour d'assises," in which three professional judges sit together with six or nine jurors (on appeal). Conviction requires a two-thirds majority (four or six votes).


title: Jury trial

text: The country that originated the concept of the jury trial retains it in an unusual form. The Constitution of Greece and Code of criminal procedure provide that felonies (Greek: Κακουργήματα) are tried by a "mixed court" composed of three professional judges, including the President of the Court, and four lay judges who decide the facts, and the appropriate penalty if they convict. Certain felonies, such as terrorism, are exempt, due to their nature, from the jurisdiction of the "mixed courts" and are tried instead by the Court of Appeals both in first and second instance.


title: Jury trial

text: Being a Common Law jurisdiction, Gibraltar retains jury trial in a similar manner to that found in England and Wales, the exception being that juries consist of nine lay people, rather than twelve.


title: Jury trial

text: Hong Kong, as a former British colony has a common law legal system. Article 86 of Hong Kong's Basic Law, which came into force on 1 July 1997 following the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China provides: "The principle of trial by jury previously practised in Hong Kong shall be maintained."


title: Jury trial

text: Criminal trials in the High Court are by jury. The juries are generally made of seven members, who can return a verdict based on a majority of five.


title: Jury trial

text: There are no jury trials in the District Court, which can impose a sentence of up to seven years' imprisonment. This is despite the fact that all court rooms in the District Court have jury boxes. The lack of juries in the District Court has been severely criticized. Clive Grossman SC in a commentary in 2009 said conviction rates were "approaching those of North Korea".


title: Jury trial

text: Many complex commercial cases are prosecuted in the District Court rather than before a jury in the High Court. In 2009, Lily Chiang, former chairwoman of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, lost an application to have her case transferred from the District Court to the High Court for a jury trial. Justice Wright in the Court of First Instance held that there was no absolute right to a trial by jury and that the "decision as to whether an indictable offence be tried in the Court of First Instance by a judge and jury or in the District Court by a judge alone is the prerogative of the Secretary for Justice." Chiang issued a statement at the time saying "she was disappointed with the judgment because she has been deprived of a jury trial, an opportunity to be judged by her fellow citizens and the constitutional benefit protected by the Basic Law".


title: Jury trial

text: In civil cases in the Court of First Instance jury trials are available for defamation, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution or seduction unless the court orders otherwise. A jury can return a majority verdict in a civil case.


title: Jury trial

text: The government can issue a judge-only trial order, for example, in cases which contain "involvement of foreign elements", "personal safety of jurors and their family members" or "risk of perverting the course of justice if the trial is conducted with a jury".


title: Jury trial

text: Hungary used a jury system from 1897 to 1919. Since 1949, Hungary uses the mixed court system. According to the Fundamental Law of Hungary, "non-professional judges shall also participate in the administration of justice in the cases and ways specified in an Act." In these cases, the court adjudicates in a panel which is composed of 1 professional judge as chair of the panel and 2 lay judges or 2 professional judges and 3 lay judges. Lay judges are elected by city councils and can be Hungarian citizens between the age of 30 and 70 years who have not been convicted. Non-professional judges have the same rights and responsibilities as professional judges, meaning that if they vote against the professional judge(s), their vote will decide the verdict. According to procedural laws, the youngest judge votes first and the chair of the panel votes last in case they reach a verdict through a vote.


title: Jury trial

text: The history of jury trials in India dates back to the period of European colonization. In 1665, a petit jury in Madras composed of twelve English and Portuguese jurors acquitted a Mrs. Ascentia Dawes, who was on trial for the murder of her enslaved servant. During the period of Company rule in India, jury trials within a dual-court system territories were implemented in Indian territories under East India Company (EIC) control. In Presidency towns (such as Calcutta, Bombai and Madras), Crown Courts employed juries to judge European and Indian defendants in criminal cases. Outside of Presidency towns, Company Courts staffed by EIC officials judged both criminal and civil cases without the use of a jury.


title: Jury trial

text: In 1860, after the British Crown assumed control over the EIC's possessions in India, the Indian Penal Code was adopted. A year later, the Code of Criminal Procedure was adopted in 1861. These new regulations stipulated that criminal juries were only mandatory in the High courts of Presidency towns; in all other parts of British India, they were optional and rarely utilized. In cases where the defendants were either European or American, at least half of the jury was required to be European or American men, with the justification given that juries in these cases had to be "acquainted with [the defendant's] feelings and dispositions."


title: Jury trial

text: During the 20th century, the jury system in British India came under criticism from both colonial officials and independence activists. The system received no mentions in the 1950 Indian Constitution and frequently went unimplemented in many Indian legal jurisdictions after independence in 1947. In 1958, the Law Commission of India recommended its abolition in the fourteenth report that the commission submitted to the Indian government. Jury trials in India were gradually abolished during the 1960's, culminating in the 1973 Criminal Procedure Code, which remains in effect into the 21st century.


title: Jury trial

text: Parsis in India are legally permitted to use jury trials to decide divorces wherein randomly selected jurors (referred to in the Indian legal system as "delegates") from the local Parsi community are used to decide the outcome the matrimonial disputes in question during civil trials. This jury system consists of a mixture of common law juries and the Panchayati raj form of local government, and was first implemented during the period of British rule, with the colonial administration passing the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act in 1936. Post-independence, it was amended by the Indian government in 1988.


title: Jury trial

text: In the Republic of Ireland, a common law jurisdiction, jury trials are available for criminal cases before the Circuit Court, Central Criminal Court and defamation cases, consisting of twelve jurors.


title: Jury trial

text: Juries only decide questions of fact; they have no role in criminal sentencing in criminal cases or awarding damages in libel cases. It is not necessary that a jury be unanimous in its verdict. In civil cases, a verdict may be reached by a majority of nine of the twelve members. In a criminal case, a verdict need not be unanimous where there are not fewer than eleven jurors if ten of them agree on a verdict after considering the case for a reasonable time.


title: Jury trial

text: Juries are selected from a jury panel, which is picked at random by the county registrar from the electoral register. The principal statute regulating the selection, obligations and conduct of juries is the Juries Act 1976 as amended by the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2008, which scrapped the upper age limit of 70. Juries are not paid, nor do they receive travel expenses. They do receive lunch for the days that they are serving; however, for jurors in employment, their employer is required to pay them as if they were present at work.


title: Jury trial

text: For certain terrorist and organised crime offences the Director of Public Prosecutions may issue a certificate that the accused be tried by the Special Criminal Court composed of three judges instead of a jury, one from the District Court, Circuit Court and High Court.


title: Jury trial

text: The Corte d'Assise is composed of 2 judges and 6 laypersons chosen at random among Italian citizens 30 to 65 years old. Only serious crimes like murder can be tried by the Corte d'Assise.


title: Jury trial

text: On May 28, 2004, the Diet of Japan enacted a law requiring selected citizens to take part in criminal court trials of certain severe crimes to make decisions together with professional judges, both on guilt and on the sentence. These citizens are called "saiban-in" (裁判員 "lay judge"). The "saiban-in" system was implemented in May 2009.


title: Jury trial

text: The Kuba Kingdom, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, developed trial by jury independently prior to the arrival of Europeans in 1884.


title: Jury trial

text: Malaysia abolished trials by jury on 1 January 1995. The impartiality of jury trials had been brought into question for several years prior, but their abolition was expedited by the notorious Mona Fandey case in 1993. The sensational nature of the crime heightened concerns that jury verdicts could be coloured by emotions and media bias.


title: Jury trial

text: The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 provides a defendant with the right to a jury trial if they are charged with a criminal offence punishable by two years' imprisonment or more. For most offences, the defendant can choose to forego a jury trial in favour of a judge-alone (bench) trial. Serious "category 4" offences such as murder, manslaughter and treason are always tried by jury, with some exceptions. Civil jury trials are restricted to cases involving defamation, false imprisonment or malicious prosecution.


title: Jury trial

text: New Zealand previously required jury verdicts to be passed unanimously, but since the passing of the Criminal Procedure Bill in 2009 the Juries Act 1981 has permitted verdicts to be passed by a majority of one less than the full jury (that is an 11–1 or a 10–1 majority) under certain circumstances.


title: Jury trial

text: Norway has a system where the lower courts ("tingrett") is set with a judge and two lay judges, or in bigger cases two judges and three lay judges.


title: Jury trial

text: All of these judges convict or acquit, and set sentences. Simple majority is required in all cases, which means that the lay-judges are always in control.


title: Jury trial

text: In the higher court/appellate court ("lagmannsrett") there is a jury ("lagrette") of 10 members, which need a minimum of seven votes to be able to convict. The judges have no say in the jury deliberations, but jury instructions are given by the chief judge ("lagmann") in each case to the jury before deliberations. The "voir-dire" is usually set with 16 prospective jurors, which the prosecution and defence may dismiss the six persons they do not desire to serve on the jury.


title: Jury trial

text: This court ("lagmannsretten") is administered by a three-judge panel (usually one "lagmann" and two "lagdommere"), and if seven or more jury members want to convict, the sentence is set in a separate proceeding, consisting of the three judges and the jury foreman ("lagrettens ordfører") and three other members of the jury chosen by ballot. This way the laymen are in control of both the conviction and sentencing, as simple majority is required in sentencing.


title: Jury trial

text: The three-judge panel can set aside a jury conviction or acquittal if there has been an obvious miscarriage of justice. In that event, the case is settled by three judges and four lay-judges.


title: Jury trial

text: In May 2015, the Norwegian Parliament asked the government to bring an end to jury trials, replacing them with a bench trial ("meddomsrett") consisting of two law-trained judges and five lay judges ("lekdommere"). This has now been fully implemented as of March 2021.


title: Jury trial

text: In the judiciary of Russia, for serious crimes the accused has the option of a jury trial consisting of 12 jurors. The number of jury trials remains small, at about 600 per year, out of about 1 million trials. A juror must be 25 years old, legally competent, and without a criminal record. The 12 jurors are selected by the prosecution and defense from a list of 30–40 eligible candidates. The Constitution of Russia stipulates that, until the abolition of the death penalty, all defendants in a case that may result in a death sentence are entitled to a jury trial. Lawmakers are continuously chipping away at what types of criminal offenses merit a jury trial.


title: Jury trial

text: They are similar to common law juries, and unlike lay judges, in that they sit separately from the judges and decide questions of fact alone while the judge determines questions of law. They must return unanimous verdicts during the first 3 hours of deliberation, but may return majority verdicts after that, with 6 jurors being enough to acquit. They may also request that the judge show leniency in sentencing.