The Twelve

Belgium's criminal justice system up-close ... Role of judges, jurors, witnesses and counsel ... Jurors with discordant, flawed lives ... Final judgment ... Miss Lumière sees how continental law deals with murder most foul  

If you have an ear easily inured to the guttural inadequacies of Flemish and a mind willing to suspend some disbelief, legal thriller The Twelve (De Twaalf) could be your pot of mussels.

Set in contemporary Belgium, in the smallish city of Ghent, The Twelve provides a diverting insight into the workings of the Belgian justice system.

It's an eye-opener. In the criminal proceedings depicted here, three modish judges wrangle questions from the prosecution, the defence, the accused and even members of the jury. Courtus interruptus indeed.

The trial concerns a seemingly benign and well-regarded headmistress Fri Palmers (Maaike Cafmeyer) who is accused of murdering her best friend Britt twenty years before and more recently her two-year-old daughter, Roos.

Both crimes are similarly gruesome and as the series develops it becomes clear they are part of a complicated series of relationships involving Fri's ex-husband Stefaan, a sleazy philanderer played all too convincingly by Johan Heldenbergh.

What makes this ten-part drama compelling (aside from its stylish cinematography and direction and fine ensemble acting) is that it is unfolds from the perspective of six of the twelve jurors chosen to determine Fri's guilt or innocence, showing how their personal circumstances impinge upon their legal duty.

Most of them are singularly unpleasant, morally flawed (what's new) and more involved in their own grim lives than that of the accused. 

And their lives are suitably grim. They variously involve an obsessive, controlling husband; the bungled death of an illegal construction worker; sex addiction (admitted); autism (denied); the effects of trauma on one juror; and of extreme loneliness on another.

It's a potent mix informed by a year's research on the part of co-writers Bert Van Dael and Sane Nuyens, who interviewed many former jurors as well as prosecutors and judges.

At the time, Belgium was embroiled in a debate over the utility of juries, which the then government deemed too expensive. The idea was abandoned after it was found to be unconstitutional. 

To ensure verisimilitude during filming, the jury actors were kept in the dark as to the final verdict, with all the deliberations shot at the end to mirror a real-life trial.

As a device it works a treat, with your reviewer pulling the guilty/innocent switch back and forth several times over the course of ten episodes, as clues are dropped, lies exposed and flashbacks revisited. 

Added to the unreliability of the jurors, the prosecution is shown to be compromised, red herrings leap from the shadows and evidence mutates. 

The whole effect is both gripping and multi-layered.

Van Dael and Nuyens have form in this respect: they were responsible for one of Netflix Original's most original series of 2016, Hotel Beau Séjour, in which a young woman who wakes up as a corpse sets out to solve her own murder. 

The Twelve may only be six, but it packs a punch twice its size in terms of plot, character and suspense.

Does it damn or praise the jury system? You be the judge.

Streaming now on Netflix and SBS On Demand.