Legal Dictionary of Pakistan
Quick lookup for English, Urdu, and Latin legal terms used in Pakistani jurisprudence.
absolute disparity
Constitutional law. The difE,rence between the percentage of a group in ~i;e general population and the percentage of ;.tat group in the pool of prospective jurors on a venire. * For example, if African-Americans make up 12% of a county's population and 8% of the potential jurors on a venire, the absolute disparity of African-American veniremembers is 4%. The reason for calculating the disparity is to analyze a claim that the jury was not impartial because the venire from which it was chosen did not represent a fair cross-section of the jurisdiction's population. Some courts criticize the absolute-disparity analysis, favoring instead the comparative-disparity analysis, in the belief that the absolute-disparity analysis understates the deviation. See FAIR-CROSS-SECTION REQUIREMENT; DUREN TEST; STATISTICAL-DECISION THEORY. Cf. COMPARATIVE DISPARITY.
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.
disparity
Inequality; a difference in quantity or quality between two or more things.