Judgment of Peers
idea · 2 works · 4 mentions · 8 anchored passages
judgment of their peers · judicium parium · judgment of his peers · legal judgment · legal judgment of peers · legal judgment of their peers
in the texts
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John
The legal principle that disputes and disseisins must be judged by one's peers, applied to Welsh claims though left partly undefined.
All three classes of alleged disseisins (whatever the law involved) were to be decided by a judicium parium;
Si nos disseisivimus vel elongavimus Walenses de terris vel libertatibus vel rebus aliis, sine legali judicio parium suorum, in Anglia vel in Wallia, eis statim reddantur;
If we have disseised or removed Welshmen from lands or liberties, or other things, without the legal judgment of their peers in England or in Wales, they shall be immediately restored to them;
An Essay on the Trial by Jury
The principle that individuals may be deprived of property or liberty only by the judgment of their peers.
As an illustration of what tyranny the kings would sometimes practise, Hume says:
It may here be mentioned, in passing, that the same would be true in criminal matters, if the king’s laws were obligatory upon juries.
By Magna Carta John bound himself to make restitution for some of the spoliations he had committed upon individuals “without the legal judgment of their peers.