Jury Courts in Interwar Poland

Abstract

Jury courts existed in all the partitioning countries, and after 1918 they were to operate in all parts of the reborn Polish state. Their activities were suspended indefinitely in the former Prussian and Russian partitions. Only the former Austrian partition operated until 1938, when the Sanacja authorities liquidated them. Jury courts adjudicated only criminal cases –concerning the most severe crimes and political crimes. Recently, more attention has been devoted to jury courts and the participation of the social factor in the judiciary in Polish science, but so far, no publications in English have appeared on this subject. In the article, the author presents a short description of the jury’s activity in Poland and discusses three hypotheses about the activity of the jury in Polish science.