关键词: 英国陪审制, 政治逻辑, 权力博弈, 革命修辞

Abstract: Scholarly explanations for the rise, flourishing, and decline of the English jury system have predominantly focused on legal perspectives. This interpretative approach, however, overlooks its dual nature as both a political institution and a legal one, whose rise and decline were ultimately controlled and directed by political forces. Its emergence primarily resulted from a shifting balance of power among ecclesiastical authority, royal prerogative and local governance. Its golden age was largely attributable to the need of the bourgeoisie revolution to fashion juries as revolutionary rhetoric–symbolizing resistance to tyranny and the pursuit of liberty–to mobilize public support. However, after the revolution came to a triumphant conclusion, Britain's power structure became parliament-centric, diminishing the judiciary's political role. Those in power no longer required defiant juries to subvert the established political order. Amid considerations of efficiency and fiscal austerity, jury trials were gradually marginalized. Politics, of course, cannot unilaterally dictate the rise and fall of legal institutions, and its influence remains constrained by underlying cultural and traditional factors.

Key words: the English jury system, political logic, power game, revolutionary rhetoric