Obstacles to Fairness in Criminal Proceedings

On 1-2 September 2016 the Criminal Justice Research Centre hosted a seminar funded by the Modern Law Review with the School of Law, University of Zurich on Obstacles to Fairness in Criminal Proceedings: Individual Rights and Institutional Forms.

The seminar was the second of two seminars on the subject, the first held at the University of Zurich in September 2014.

Scholars from a number of European jurisdictions, the US and across the disciplines of law, philosophy and criminology considered the way in which the criminal law's focus on individual rights may constitute an obstacle to ensuring fairness in criminal proceedings and challenged various normative assumptions underpinning our understanding of fairness in criminal proceedings.

Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Law, University of Nottingham and School of Law, University of Zurich.

Over the course of the two days Professors John Jackson (University of Nottingham) and Sarah Summers (University of Zurich) chaired a number of sessions which began with a contribution from a key note speaker followed by comments from a discussant. One of the themes that dominated the discussions was how various safeguards and values associated with procedural fairness which have long been taken for granted as protecting accused persons such as the right to a fair trial, the presumption of innocence, the equality of arms, the right to defence counsel and the need to respect the autonomy of the accused may not in fact provide accused persons with the protection they need within the criminal justice process.

The speakers were:

• Judge Stefan Trechsel (former Judge Ad Litem at the ICTY) who spoke on The Character of the Human Right to a Fair Trial
• Professor David Sklansky (Stanford Law School) who spoke on Autonomy and Agency in the American Criminal Process
• Dr Hannah Quirk (University of Manchester) who spoke on The Right of Silence in England and Wales: Sacred Cow, Sacrificial Lamb or Trojan House?
• Professor Lindsay Farmer (University of Glasgow) who spoke on Civility, the Burden of Proof and Fairness in the Criminal Trial: Revisiting Woolmington v DPP
• Professors John Jackson and Sarah Summers who spoke on Seeking Core Fair Trial Standards across National Boundaries: Judicial Impartiality, Adversariality and the Right to Counsel
• Professor Wolfgang Wohlers (University of Basel) who spoke on the Role of Counsel in Criminal Proceedings
• Dr Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos (University of Brunel) who spoke on "Falling on Deaf Ears?": Looking for the Salduz Jurisprudence in Greece in a Time of Crisis
• Dr Yvonne McDermott (University of Bangor) who spoke on The 'Internationalised' Nature of Procedure in International Criminal Trials and Universal Fair Trial Rights
• Professor Eric Miller (Loyola Law School) who spoke on Policing Criminal Justice: A Fair Cop and a Fair Trial
• Professor Richard Lippke (Indiana University) who spoke on Regulating and Limiting Plea Concessions: In Search of Fairness in Charge Adjudication
• Kelly Pitcher (University of Leiden) who spoke on Rights Analysis in Addressing Pre-Trial Impropriety: An Obstacle to Fairness?

The discussants were Professor Kai Ambos (University of Göttingen), Dr Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos (University of Brunel), Professor John Jackson (University of Nottingham), Dr Vicky Kemp (University of Nottingham), Catarina Sjolin Knight (Nottingham Trent), Dr Nell Munro (University of Nottingham), Joe Purshouse (University of East Anglia), Candida Saunders (University of Nottingham), Professor David Sklansky (Stanford Law School), Professor Sarah Summers (Zurich) and Professor Dirk Van Zyl Smit (University of Nottingham).

From left to right: Nell Munro, Lindsay Farmer, Marc Thommen, Catarina Sjolin Knight, Sarah Summers, John Jackson, Stefan Trechsel, Candida Saunders.