Legal Dictionary of Pakistan
Quick lookup for English, Urdu, and Latin legal terms used in Pakistani jurisprudence.
comparative disparity. Constitutional law
The percentage of under representation of a particular group among potential jurors on a venire, in comparison with the group's percentage of the general population. ( Comparative disparity is calculated by subtracting a group's percentage of representation on the venire from the group's percentage of the population - that is, calculating the group's absolute-disparity representation - then dividing that percentage by the group's percentage-representation in the population, and multiplying the result by 100. For example, if African-Americans make up 12% of a county's population, and 8% of the potential jurors on the venire, the absolute disparity of African-Americans is 4%. And the comparative disparity is 33%, because 4 divided by 12 is .33, or 33%. Many courts criticize the comparative-disparity analysis, and favor an absolute-disparity analysis, because the comparative-disparity analysis is said to exaggerate the deviation. The reason for calculating the disparity is to analyze a claim that the jury was not impartial because it was not selected from a pool of jurors that fairly represented the makeup of the jurisdiction. See DUREN TEST; FAIR-CROSS-SECTION REQUIREMENT; STATISTICAL-DECISION THEORY. Cf. ABSOLUTE DISPARITY.
constitutional law
1 The body of law deriving from the U.S. Constitution and dealing primarily with governmental powers, civil rights, and civil liberties. 2. The body of legal rules that determine the constitution of a state with an flexible constitution.