Word.ws English Dictionary

be judge and jury

be judge and jury verb: as an authority, to have the power to make a decision affecting someone or an organisation by oneself.

Verb

be judge and jury (third-person singular simple present is judge and jury, present participle being judge and jury, simple past was judge and jury, past participle been judge and jury)

  1. As an authority, to have the power to make a decision affecting someone or an organisation by oneself.
    • The fear from operators that sit outside GBR [Great British Railways], chiefly freight and open access operators, is that GBR will be judge and jury in any future system and can simply decide to do what it wants.2026 March 18, Philip Haigh, “Early thoughts on track access and charges”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 22

Forms of be judge and jury

third-person singular presentis judge and jury
present participlebeing judge and jury
pastwas judge and jury
past participlebeen judge and jury

Origin of be judge and jury

In most jurisdictions that practice jury trials, the defendant's guilt is determined by jury, while his or her sentence is determined by the trial judge. An authority that can exercise the powers of a jury and judge therefore lacks a balance of power.

Questions about be judge and jury

What does be judge and jury mean?
Be judge and jury means as an authority, to have the power to make a decision affecting someone or an organisation by oneself.
What part of speech is be judge and jury?
Be judge and jury is a verb.
What is the past tense of be judge and jury?
The past tense of be judge and jury is was judge and jury.

Words near be judge and jury in the dictionary

  1. be in the pocket of someone
  2. be into
  3. be it as it may
  4. be it so
  5. be it what it would
  6. be judge and jury
  7. be kind, rewind
  8. be late
  9. be left at the post
  10. be left holding the baby
  11. be left kicking

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: be judge and jury (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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