Sarah J Summers

The right to a fair trial has become an issue of increasing public concern, following a series of high profile cases such as the Bulger case, Khan (Sultan) and R v DPP ex p Kebilene. In determining the scope of the right, we now increasingly look to the ECHR, but the court has given little guidance, focusing on reconciling procedural rules rather than addressing the broader issues. This book addresses the issue of the meaning of the right by examining the contemporary jurisprudence in the light of a body of historical literature which discusses criminal procedure in a European context. It argues that there is in fact a European criminal procedural tradition which has been neglected in contemporary discussions, and that an understanding of this tradition might illuminate the discussion of fair trial in the contemporary jurisprudence. This challenging new work elucidates the meaning of the fair trial and in doing so challenges the conventional approach to the analysis of criminal procedure as based on the distinction between adversarial and inquisitorial procedural systems. The book is divided into two parts. The first part is dominated by an examination of the fair trial principles in the works of several notable European jurists of the nineteenth century, arguing that their writings were instrumental in the development of the principles underlying the modern conception of criminal proceedings. The second part looks at the fair trials jurisprudence of the ECHR and it is suggested that although the Court has neglected the European tradition, the jurisprudence has nevertheless been influenced, albeit unconsciously, by the institutional principles developed in the nineteenth century.

The European Criminal Procedural Tradition and the European Court of Human Rights

Fair Trials

John D Jackson

This volume considers the way in which the focus on individual rights may constitute an obstacle to ensuring fairness in criminal proceedings. The increasingly cosmopolitan nature of criminal justice, forcing legal systems with different institutional forms and practices to interact with each other as they attempt to combat crime beyond national borders, has accentuated the need for systems to seek legitimacy beyond their domestic traditions. Fairness, expressed in terms of the right to a fair trial in provisions such as Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, has emerged across Europe as the principal means of guaranteeing the legitimacy of criminal proceedings. The consequence of this is that criminal procedure doctrines are framed overwhelmingly in 'constitutional' terms – the protection of defence rights is necessary to restrict and legitimate the state's mandate to prosecute crime. Yet there are various problems with relying solely or predominantly on defence rights as a means of ensuring that proceedings are 'fair' or legitimate and these issues are rarely discussed in the academic literature. In this volume, scholars from the disciplines of law, philosophy and sociology challenge various normative assumptions underpinning our understanding of fairness in criminal proceedings.

Individual Rights and Institutional Forms

Obstacles to Fairness in Criminal Proceedings

Christian Schwarzenegger

Gian Ege

Finlay Young

Criminal law can no longer be neatly categorised as the product and responsibility of domestic law. That this is true is emphasised by the ever-increasing amount of legislation stemming from the European Union (EU) which impacts, both directly and indirectly, on the criminal law. The involvement of the EU institutions in the substantive criminal laws of its Member States is of considerable legal and political significance. This book deals with the emerging EU framework for creating, harmonising and ensuring the application of EU criminal law. This book aims to highlight some of the consequences of EU involvement in the criminal law by examining the provisions which have been adopted in the field of information and communications technology. It provides an overview of the criminal law competence of the EU and evaluates the impact of these developments on the criminal laws of the Member States. It then goes on to consider the EU legislation which requires Member States to regulate matters such as data protection, e-security, intellectual property and various types of illegal content through the criminal law is analysed. In the course of this evaluation, particular consideration is given to issues such as the basis on which the EU institutions establish the need for criminal sanctions, the liability of service providers and the extent to which the Member States have adhered to, or departed from, the legislation in the course of implementation.

Sarah J Summers

Books

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