Constructing the Pre-Trial Role of the Defence in French Criminal Procedure

An Adversarial Outsider in an Inquisitorial Process

Bibliographic Data

ID12596209
AuthorsJacqueline Hodgson (0000-0003-0678-7708, School of Law, University of Warwick, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume6
Issue1
Pages1-16
Publication date2002-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe International Journal of Evidence & Proof (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1365-7127 • E-ISSN: 1740-5572
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/136571270200600101
OpenAlexW1535145774
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited1

This article outlines the construction of the role of the defence lawyer in French pre-trial criminal procedure and the factors which have both influenced and constrained its recent evolution. Beginning with an examination of the changing ways in which the pre-trial defence role is characterised by the text of the law and the official discourse surrounding it, the article then provides an empirically based account of the ways in which the defence avocat is perceived and accommodated by the key legal actors, namely the police and the judicial officers charged with the supervision of criminal investigations. A careful unpicking of the nature of their resistance to any effective defence role reveals fundamental weaknesses in the functioning of the current inquisitorial structure and, paradoxically, suggests that there is more rather than less room for the defence to play a role within French pre-trial criminal procedure

Adversarial system · Computer security · Criminal investigation · Criminal law · Criminal procedure · Criminal trial · Epistemology · Key (lock · Political science · Process (computing · Sociology · Computer Science · Historical and Scientific Studies · Law · Legal Systems and Institutions · Medieval and Early Modern Justice · Philosophy · Psychology

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