Should Scotland abolish juries in civil cases and rely on judges alone, and if so, how should the Scottish courts ensure public confidence in the outcome?

Hello, I'm Wilson, and this one is yours alone. You're asking whether Scotland should stop using juries in civil cases and let judges decide them, and if it does, how the courts keep the public's trust. The question needs narrowing first. Civil juries in Scotland are rare. They sit mainly in the Court of Session and the specialist personal injury court, and they mostly decide personal injury claims and, now and then, defamation. So this isn't about ending the jury as a democratic institution. Criminal juries are a separate matter, and nothing here touches them. The real question is narrower. When one citizen sues another for money, does a group of twelve lay people deliver better justice than a judge who must explain her reasoning? I'd add a harder version. If the jury goes, what replaces the legitimacy that twelve ordinary people seem to lend a verdict? Answer both, and the policy question settles itself.

My answer is yes, abolish the civil jury as a routine option, but treat that as a trade, not a cut. Here is the reasoning. A civil case turns on …