Does Belgium use jury trials?
Limited use / mixed courts
Belgium uses juries only for specific serious crimes, political crimes, and press delicts via the Court of Assize.
Belgium is one of 12 countries classified “Limited use / mixed courts” for jury trials — 44% of the 27 with data.
Source
- Taken from
- Wikipedia: Jury trial
- Last checked
- 17 September 2026
- How it was classified
- Classified by a language model from the source text, then checked against hand-verified reference countries.
Nearby countries
- France
- Limited use / mixed courts Juries sit with professional judges to determine guilt and penalty, indicating a limited role in the justice system.
- Germany
- Not used Jury trials were abolished in 1924; serious cases are heard by mixed panels of professional and lay judges.
- Switzerland
- Not used The unified Swiss Code of Criminal Procedure entering into force in 2011 abolishes jury trials and lay judges.
- United Kingdom
- Jury trials used Jury trials are a regular part of the justice system in the United Kingdom's legal jurisdictions.
- Austria
- Limited use / mixed courts Austria retains jury elements only for serious criminal cases, indicating a limited application.
- Ireland
- Jury trials used Jury trials are a standard feature of the criminal justice system and specific civil defamation cases.
Other laws in Belgium
- Death Penalty
- Fully abolished
- Gun Laws
- Licensed / moderate
- Military Conscription
- No conscription
A visual reference compiled from Wikipedia’s law-by-country articles, not legal advice. Laws change and summaries simplify — check a primary source before relying on anything here.