Masked police officers in Romania carried out fresh raids early Wednesday at the home of divisive internet influencer Andrew Tate, who is awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.
Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said it was searching four homes in Bucharest and nearby Ilfov county, investigating allegations of human trafficking, the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, influencing statements and money laundering. The agency added that hearings will later be held at its headquarters.
Well, it could be depending on how robust their anti corruption practices are. Because what really makes more sense, 12 citizens, uneducated in law and its application, getting manipulated by differing levels of millionaire depending on the wealth of the defendant/plaintiff? Or a legal expert weighing the facts to determine their strength?
Because, both are open to corruption. The jury of your peers is open to corruption in the ways I’m sure most people on lemmy are familiar with, but the other way, with robust anti corruption laws, would arguably be better.
There’s also the fact that appealing a judgement goes to more judges, always different than ones who have seen the case. Basically:
1st judgement -> 1 judge
1st appeal -> 2 different judges (must be unanimous)
2nd appeal -> 3 different judges (must be unanimous)
This makes corruption less common, as getting 6 different judges to all risk their career for a bribe is unlikely.
I’m not going to claim this system is perfect. There are issues with the fact that there is no mechanism for preventing enforcement of an unjust law. If it’s on the books and it’s an open-shut case, the law will be applied no matter how unjust it is. The inverse is also true though: you can’t have unjust rulings that ignore laws the other direction, for example jury nullification of the murder of a black person (used to happen all the time in the US).
Like most things, it’s a tradeoff. Some things are better, some are worse.
It would be easier and cheaper for an elite to bribe a hand full of judges then it would be to repeatedly bribe different sets of jurors.
Cheaper? Maybe. Easier? No, not really. Ion Popescu from Bumfuck, Nowhere doesn’t have the DNA breathing down his neck, watching for any signs of living outside his means and any unusual bank account activity.
EDIT: To be clear, I’m not saying corruption doesn’t happen. It does. I’m just saying it’s not automatically much worse than juries.
Because what really makes more sense, 12 citizens, uneducated in law and its application, getting manipulated by differing levels of millionaire depending on the wealth of the defendant/plaintiff?
That doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s not what it says in the Owner’s Manual. That’s just how it works out once in awhile. No one’s suggesting the Justice system in the US is magical and flawless. Besides, there aren’t any news articles about juries who get it right and send a guilty person to prison or release an innocent person.
Yeah, it’s not magical or flawless. Because the relationships between the wealthy prosecutors and the judges and the overburdened courts system lead to almost all poor defendants being threatened into taking a plea deal as opposed to going to trial, regardless of their guilt because a jury trial is expensive as fuck and also brings with it the chance to be put away for way longer. That’s how it works out when it doesn’t work out the way it’s laid out in the owners manual.
Not to mention cash bail. Or municipal violations literally only affecting those without money to make it disappear. And political judges. And groups like the heritage foundation.
I’m just saying, I don’t know how Romanian justice really works in practice, but in the US, we have quite the fucking shit system.
Many different countries have use different methods for trials. Some countries reserve jury trials for serious criminal offences, some give the accused the option of a bench trial, and some do a mix of judges with juries.
