Trial by Jury in the Welsh Colony of Chubut and its Contemporary Projection

Abstract

The institutional experience developed by the Welsh colony settled in the Chubut River valley since 1865 constitutes one of the most relevant yet least studied precedents of citizen participation in the administration of justice within Argentine territory. In the absence of permanent state authorities, the settlers organized self-governance structures that included the establishment of trial by jury as an ordinary mechanism for resolving civil and criminal disputes. This paper examines that experience and links it to the contemporary development of jury trials in various Argentine provinces. The Chubut case possesses the additional singularity that the current implementation of this institution does not represent the reception of an external model, but rather the legal recovery of an institutional tradition born within its own territory during the 19th century.