Full Informed Juries Jury Rights Editorial Fully Informed Juries by Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor Juries have the Constitutional and common-law right to judge both fact and law. This right is proper, because in this way, the law is ultimately enforced by the people, not by the rulers of the government.
Juries are a check on the arbitrary and corrupt power of government.
As the 19th-century political philosopher Lysander Spooner wrote, juries provide a trial by the country rather than a trial by the government authorities. If a law is unjust, juries have the legal right to refuse to enforce it. Some argue that the law should be set only by the elected representatives, and if a law is unjust, then it is up to the people to change it via their representatives. One problem with this proposition is that a minority might not be able to change a law that a majority desires. Also, the way that democracies are structured today, special interests influence legislation that is often not in the public interest.