Court of assizes (Belgium)

The court of assizes is the trial court that tries the most serious crimes in the judicial system of Belgium, exercising jurisdiction over serious offenses that have not been correctionalised into a lower court docket as well as exclusive jurisdiction over political and press offenses; in practice most of its trials involve homicide or other grave crimes. It sits with three professional judges alongside a jury of twelve people drawn at random from the electoral rolls, who must be between 28 and 65 years old and literate in the language of the trial. The jury alone determines the facts of a case, while it decides the sentence jointly with the judges.