The South Koreans don’t waste time, their economy & democracy have developed fast, they have the fastest internet speeds in the world, and now they have a fast justice system too.
They have just adopted a jury system for trials.
Not ones to muck around they made the decision and got on with it catching citizens out when they received their jury service summons.
It also appears they don’t hang around in court, with murder trials taking a day!
So far, nearly all the jury trials have been concluded within one day, from jury selection in the morning, through lawyers’ presentations in the afternoon, to jury deliberations in early evening. Jurors, usually numbering five to nine, are instructed that if they cannot reach a unanimous verdict within an hour or so, they must consult the judge for guidance.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/07/asia/jury.php
I was impressed that jurors didn’t want to be away from work for more than a day - maybe if we could achieve one day trials here people wouldn’t constantly try and get out of jury service, robbing the system of a balanced representation of citizens. I guess it would quickly clear that backlog of trials we have and the delays in people actually getting justice - ‘justice delayed is justice denied’.
I guess things will change in Korea as the courts adapt and trials start to drag out. The Japanese have also adopted jury trials and it will be interesting to see how their highly arbitrary justice system evolves.
