We have word of the conference Lay Participation in Modern Law: A Comparative Historical Analysis, to be held at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Law, Porthania, Yliopistonkatu 3, on September 17-19, 2014. The organizers are Professors Heikki Pihlajamäki (Helsinki), Georges Martyn (Ghent), Anthony Musson (Exeter), and Markus Dubber (Toronto). It is funded by the Academy of Finland, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Flanders).
Thursday, 18 August
Session 1: The Roots of Modern Lay Participation, 10.00-12.00
David Mirhady (Simon Fraser University): Knowing the Law and Deciding Justice: Lay Expertise in the Democratic Athenian Courts
Anthony Musson (University of Exeter): The Legacy of Magna Carta: the Enigma of the Jury
Session 2: The Jury in the French Tradition and In Common Law, 13.30 - 15.30
Georges Martyn (Ghent University): Belgian's Obsession with Democratic Control by Jury in High Crime Procedures
Pedro Barbas Homem (University of Lisbon): The Jury and the Portuguese Legal Tradition
Simon Stern (University of Toronto): Oratory and the Jury Trial in Nineteenth-Century America
Session 3: The Jury in Common Law and the Peripheries, 16:00 - 18:00
Niamh Howlin (University College Dublin): The Politics of Jury Trials in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
Kalyani Ramnath (Princeton University): Mrs. Seneviratne's Suicide: Lawyers, Experts and Jurors in Colonial Ceylon
Mia Korpiola (University of Turku): Back to the Glory Days of the Past: Reforming the Finnish Jury ca. 1850-1910
Friday, 19 August
Session 4: The Waning Jury? 10:00 - 12:00
Kate Harrington (University of Exeter): The University as Judge and Jury: Lay Participation in Academic Inquisitions
Markus Dirk Dubber (University of Toronto): A Tale of Two Juries
Heikki Pihlajamäki (University of Helsinki): The Three Models of the Western Lay Judge: From Diversity to Common Extinction
Session 5: Concluding Discussion, 13:30 - 15:00
