The concept of trial by jury, whether for serious criminal offences or in serious cases for civil wrongs, lies at the heart of the common law legal system established under the Constitution.
While jury trial in criminal matters features prominently in the several Irish text books published on criminal law and the law of evidence there is, by contrast, no contemporary text specifically on the subject of civil jury trial and the right to trial by jury in civil proceedings.
Apart from the need to fill a long overdue information deficit in this area of law for the legally curious the purpose of this book is to provide judges and practitioners engaged in civil litigation with a practical companion on the law relating to and the practice and procedure of civil jury trial.
That the concept of jury trial, enshrined in the Magna Carta, has survived to the modern day is testament to the resilience this mode of trial as the best means of preserving and protecting the civil liberties of the individual. Conceived and found to be a bulwark against the arbitrary misuse of power through the involvement of the public in the administration of justice, jury trial is above all a quintessential manifestation of democracy in the justice system.
While the right to trial by jury for serious criminal offences enshrined in the Constitution is well understood and the subject of much study and discourse, the same cannot be said for the statutory right to jury trial in civil proceedings. From experience the extent of the right is not generally appreciated, even by those practicing in civil litigation, as a consequence of which litigants can be left without advice on the entitlement to a jury trial as of right, a lacuna comprehensively addressed by this book.
