I’m mainly talking about:
- Voting (at federal elections)
- Jury Duty (at a courtroom)
I know that in certain countries like Australia for example: citizens there actually have to vote otherwise they face a A$20 (12€) fine for literally not putting a vote. There was a case where a guy was sued and received a A$303 (182€) fine on top of that for disregarding the previous penalities. To me, that sounds stupid, voting shouldn’t be “forced” down on citizens, if that’s the right way to say it.
What about the scenario you receive a letter from the courts that you’re selected as a juror? Let’s say you got a letter saying that you’ve been chosen within a pool and assigned a number (like a draft lottery) whether the courts decide if you’re “fit” enough to be a juror at a trial. The thing is, has this happened to you or anyone you know in your country? If so, what is it like receiving a summons?
EU is 27 different countries with different system. In some voting may be mandatory in other it isn’t
I believe that very few European countries have jury trial, and often it’s limited to some case/part of the trial. So definitely not a standard European experience
In France, voting is not mandatory, and citizen-jury is
nota thing.Edit: jury is a thing and is mandatory, as pointed out below.
In France, voting isn’t mandatory, but jury duty is a thing and is mandatory.
I stand corrected, thank you.
I wouldn’t say that compulsory voting is “stupid”. There are some very good arguments for it.
Firstly, it addresses the imbalance of cost of voting (the time and effort you need to spend to cast your vote) with its effect (the tiny fraction of impact your vote has on the outcome). This disproportionately affects lower income voters, especially in some countries like the US, where voting usually happens on a weekday.
Secondly, the outcomes are no longer won “by turnout”. In other words, to win the election you can no longer merely convince your supporters to vote for you, you need to actually convince people who don’t support you to vote for you.
Thirdly, and perhaps less convincingly, this stimulates the interest in the decision and the outcome. Since you have to vote, you may be inclined to actually form your opinion about the elections, and follow up on its outcomes.
I see your point, at the same time I’m afraid of what would be my country if everyone forced to vote considering all propaganda and disinformation. Though it’s more of campaigning system issue than voting system issue
Speaking for germany: no mandatory voting, no jury duty.
Being part of a jury is voluntary and you have to apply for it. It’s also probably quite different from the US jury system.
You can however called up to be a Schöffe: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schöffengericht (no English version available, your friendly LLM next door should help out)
Same as most European countries, Germany has the adversarial system - no jury, just the judge.
Don’t know about elsewhere, but in Germany, for some trials, there are an additional 1 or 2 “lay judges” - non-professional judges from the community.
Quite similar here in Czech Republic. No jury duty, because there is no jury and voting is absolutely up to you.
These lay judges are the remnants of the jury system, they are basically a mini jury.
Schöffen duty can be mandatory, if not enough volunteers can be found (or are not deemed trustworthy enough by the local council).
There is a form of jury duty in Germany: Schöffe (honory judge).
I don’t think most European countries have juries. Judging should be done by people who are qualified to do so, i.e. judges.
While Belgium does have mandatory voting, most other countries do not.
I like the idea of mandatory voting. I also like the idea of the “I voted” -Bratwurst or other kind of snack offered at booths in Australia.
certain countries like Australia
Have you ever heard the saying that there are no kangaroos in Austria?
Pretty sure I saw some. In Tierpark Schönbrunn.
Sweden has no mandatory voting. The participation is usually at ~80% or slightly above which is pretty high compared with other democracies.
As for jury’s, we have councils with a judge where laymen, often local politicians, vote for an outcome. You can apply for it but it’s not mandatory.
No forced voting in Germany and no Jury Duty (it’s crazy this is even a thing in the US). There are no EU mandates for any of that.
It’s not crazy really, there are good arguments to be made for it. We had it too in Germany until 1924: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschworenengericht
There’s no jury, but there are Schöffen in Germany. Those are layman judges. If there are not enough volunteers it can be made mandatory for any citizen.
They are voted in for 5 years by the city council.
In Italy voting is a compulsory duty. You don’t get a fine, but if you don’t vote for a certain number of times you won’t be allowed to vote anymore.
I call bullshit on that. Wikipedia says compulsory voting ended in 1993: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting
I checked and I am indeed mistaken. There are ways to lose the right to vote, but not voting is not one of them.
Thank you for the correction! Appreciate your integrity.
That’s insane. How do you get your right to vote back if you want to start voting again?
I believe it is not possible. Probably the president of the republic could give it back to you in case you got some important merits.
Thats sounds very undemocratic lol
Apparently I was mistaken, and this is not the case.
There is no such thing like EU citizenship. All countries have still some kind of independence and own laws. As far as I know nobody can be forced to vote, and in almost all countries there is no jury duty except of France, Austria and Belgium(?). But I am not sure about that.
Of course there is something like EU citizenship. Read the TEU and TFEU. It is conferring its own set of rights but is dependent on someone being a citizen of an EU member state. Hovever there are cases were people who are the one aren’t the other.
There is no state of EU therefore there is no citizenship. You just have the citizenship of a member state.
You did not say before, that EU citizenship is no national citizenship (which it isn’t indeed), you said that EU citizenship does not exist, which is demonstratively false.
Article 20 TFEU
"1. Citizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship.
- Citizens of the Union shall enjoy the rights and be subject to the duties provided for in the Treaties. They shall have, inter alia:
(a) the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States;
(b) the right to vote and to stand as candidates in elections to the European Parliament and in municipal elections in their Member State of residence, under the same conditions as nationals of that State;
(c ) the right to enjoy, in the territory of a third country in which the Member State of which they are nationals is not represented, the protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities of any Member State on the same conditions as the nationals of that State;
(d) the right to petition the European Parliament, to apply to the European Ombudsman, and to address the institutions and advisory bodies of the Union in any of the Treaty languages and to obtain a reply in the same language.
These rights shall be exercised in accordance with the conditions and limits defined by the Treaties and by the measures adopted thereunder."
there is in France? it must be rare as I’ve never heard anyone had to be jury
It’s uncommon but it is a thing https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1540
