This chapter starts by presenting a brief sketch of the key stages and decisions of the criminal process which forms part of the English criminal justice system. The significance of those stages and decisions is discussed before they are then classified according to their nature and consequence. This is followed in the next section by differentiating between the criminal process and the system before moving on to orient the reader by outlining significant reforms that have shaped the criminal process in the past decades. There is a final concluding section.
Chapter
1. Introduction to the English criminal process
Chapter
12. Appeals, reviews, and retrials
This chapter examines the appeals system, the most important purpose of which from the legal system’s point of view is the development and clarification of the law. Reviewing the law in this way allows the higher courts to exert some control over the lower courts and adds much to an understanding of the forces shaping the appeals system. From the point of view of litigants, appeals offer a chance to challenge a result they are unhappy with. The chapter discusses restrictions on appeal rights; challenging jury verdicts; due process appeals; post-appeal review of convictions by the Criminal Cases Review Commission; miscarriages of justice, prosecution appeals; and double jeopardy and retrials.
Chapter
24. EU criminal law
András Csúri and John R Spencer
This chapter examines what EU criminal law consists of; the reasons for its existence; and the mechanism by which it is created. It then describes the more important of its practical manifestations. It shows that Member States are torn between the practical necessity for certain problems in the area of criminal law to be dealt with at an EU level, and a deep-seated ideological resistance to this happening. A consequence of this is that the bulk of the EU instruments of which EU criminal law is composed are designed to help and encourage the criminal justice systems of the various Member States to work together, rather than to impose upon them uniform rules of criminal law or criminal procedure devised by EU law-making institutions.
Chapter
27. AFSJ: EU Criminal Law
All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. The Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (AFSJ) is now found in Title V of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The subject matter dealt with by these provisions is important and politically sensitive, as it includes police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, visas, asylum, immigration, and judicial cooperation in civil matters. This chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 considers the development of the three-pillar structure introduced by the Maastricht Treaty. Section 3 focuses on the rationale for the inclusion of the subject matter that comprises the AFSJ. Section 4 considers the general principles in the Lisbon Treaty that apply to all areas which comprise the AFSJ, including: Treaty objectives, competence, role of the principal EU institutions, judicial role, and an outline of the opt-outs that apply to the UK. The remainder of the chapter looks in more detail at criminal law and procedure. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues concerning the AFSJ and the UK post-Brexit.
Chapter
27. AFSJ: EU Criminal Law
All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. The Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (AFSJ) is now found in Title V of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The subject matter dealt with by these provisions is important and politically sensitive, as it includes police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, visas, asylum, immigration, and judicial cooperation in civil matters. This chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 considers the development of the three-pillar structure introduced by the Maastricht Treaty. Section 3 focuses on the rationale for the inclusion of the subject matter that comprises the AFSJ. Section 4 considers the general principles in the Lisbon Treaty that apply to all areas which comprise the AFSJ, including: Treaty objectives, competence, role of the principal EU institutions, judicial role, and an outline of the opt-outs that apply to the UK. The remainder of the chapter looks in more detail at criminal law and procedure. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues concerning the AFSJ and the UK post-Brexit.
Chapter
11. The trial
This chapter focuses on the criminal trial itself which is the focal point of criminal procedure. The rules governing trials therefore shape the decisions made by the police and prosecutors. The trial remains important because defendants’ decisions on whether or not to plead guilty are often informed by what they believe to be the probability of conviction. The chapter considers the courtroom processes and raises questions about the roles of judge and jury. The chapter also discusses the modes of trial; the Crown Court trial; and confrontation and the protection of witnesses all of which are closely connected to issues of procedural fairness.
Chapter
13. Circumventing the trial through preventive orders
This chapter examines a notable feature of the English legal system that has waxed and waned over the last decades—civil preventive orders. These are orders that may be made by a court sitting as a civil court; orders that contain prohibitions created by the court as a response to conduct by the defendant; and orders the breach of which amounts to a criminal offence. Thus, civil preventive order involves a kind of hybrid or two-step process (first, the making of the order according to civil procedure and, secondly, criminal proceedings in the event of breach), which has several implications for the criminal process and for the rights of defendants. More recently their form has been altered and their use moderated.
Chapter
6. Gatekeeping and diversion from prosecution
This chapter focuses on the decisions taken by the gatekeepers of the criminal process. It first outlines the role of the police, followed by a comparison with the approach of regulatory bodies as agencies that select for official action certain types of person or situation—a selection that may lead either to prosecution and trial or to a form of diversion. The chapter then considers the range of formal responses to those who are believed to be offenders, including police cautions and other out-of-court disposals. It examines the problematic dimensions of diversion, before examining accountability and the values behind some of the differing policies.
Chapter
18. The Adoption of the essential features of the adversarial system
Antonio Cassese, Paola Gaeta, Laurel Baig, Mary Fan, Christopher Gosnell, and Alex Whiting
This chapter begins with a comparison of the inquisitorial and adversarial systems of criminal procedure. It then discusses trial proceedings; appellate proceedings; and the adoption of the adversarial model at the international level.
Chapter
26. AFSJ: EU Criminal Law
All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. The Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (AFSJ) is now found in Title V of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The subject matter dealt with by these provisions is important and politically sensitive, as it includes police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, visas, asylum, immigration, and judicial cooperation in civil matters. This chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 considers the development of the three-pillar structure introduced by the Maastricht Treaty. Section 3 focuses on the rationale for the inclusion of the subject matter that comprises the AFSJ. Section 4 considers the general principles in the Lisbon Treaty that apply to all areas which comprise the AFSJ, including: Treaty objectives, competence, role of the principal EU institutions, judicial role, and an outline of the opt-outs that apply to the UK. The remainder of the chapter looks in more detail at criminal law and procedure. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues concerning the AFSJ and the UK post-Brexit.
Chapter
26. AFSJ: EU Criminal Law
All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. The Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (AFSJ) is now found in Title V of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The subject matter dealt with by these provisions is important and politically sensitive, as it includes police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, visas, asylum, immigration, and judicial cooperation in civil matters. This chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 considers the development of the three-pillar structure introduced by the Maastricht Treaty. Section 3 focuses on the rationale for the inclusion of the subject matter that comprises the AFSJ. Section 4 considers the general principles in the Lisbon Treaty that apply to all areas which comprise the AFSJ, including: Treaty objectives, competence, role of the principal EU institutions, judicial role, and an outline of the opt-outs that apply to the UK. The remainder of the chapter looks in more detail at criminal law and procedure. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues concerning the AFSJ and the UK post-Brexit.
Chapter
10. Plea
This chapter examines the law and practice on plea negotiation. After looking at the percentage of defendants who plead guilty, it then considers some of the principal reasons for changes of plea, looking at charge bargains (where the defendant agrees to plead guilty in exchange for the prosecution reducing the level of the charge or the number of charges); at fact bargains (where the defendant agrees to plead guilty only on the basis that the prosecution will put forward a particular version of the facts); and at plea negotiation (where the change of plea is motivated by considerations of sentence). The tendencies evident in the English system are then evaluated in the light of defendants’ rights and the supposed advantages to the public.
