Question: what is a justification for a grand jury

title: Grand jury
text: Grand juries were once common across Canada . The institution of British civil government in 1749 at Nova Scotia brought the judicature system peculiar to that form , and the grand jury was inherent to it . A similar form derived in Quebec from the promise of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that a faithful copy of Laws of England would be instituted in the North American possessions of the Crown . Archival records are found that document the presentments of a grand jury in Quebec as early as 16 October 1764 . One of the chief complaints was related to the jury trial , and the use of language . The desire for English law was a driver for the division in 1791 of Quebec , as it was then known , at the Ottawa river into Upper Canada and Lower Canada , as each of the two groups ( French and English ) desired to maintain their traditions . In point of fact , the second law passed in Upper Canada relates to ( petit ) jury trial . This was continued so that Chapter 31 of the 1859 Consolidated Statutes of Upper Canada specifies the constitution of Grand and Petit Juries in the province ( now known as Ontario ) . The colony at St. John 's Island , ceded by France in 1763 , and separated on 30 May 1769 from Nova Scotia , became Prince Edward Island on 29 November 1798 . Prince Edward Island derived its grand jury from its administrative parent between 1763 and 1769 , Nova Scotia , as did Sunbury County when it was split off in 1784 to become the Colony of New Brunswick . The Colony of British Columbia , when it was formed on 2 August 1858 , instituted a grand jury , along with the Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands ( 1853 -- 1863 ) and the Colony of Vancouver Island ( 1848 -- 1866 ) when the latter were absorbed by the former .