Common Law and Civil Law Interactions in Criminal Justice at Judicial Level in Western Europe: A Pilot Study on Horizontal Judicial Dialogue
![handle is hein.journals/eccc13 and id is 569 raw text is: Marinella Marmo*
Common Law and Civil Law Interactions
in Criminal Justice at Judicial Level in
Western Europe
A Pilot Study on Horizontal Judicial Dialogue
1. INTRODUCTION
This article' explores the judicial interactions between a common law country and a
continental-civil law country in criminal justice, and considers the position of the two
supranational agencies, the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe (CoE).
The paper investigates the extent to which judicial dialogue between senior judges of
domestic criminal justice systems exists at the national level, or, the extent to which it
is feasible, considering, on one hand, the English and Welsh criminal justice system2
as an example of a common law country, and on the other hand, the Italian criminal
justice system, as an example of a continental civil law country. The existence or
the lack of dialogue between national judges is tested against the possibility of true
cross-national judicial cooperation in criminal justice matters other than transborder
crime. This paper aims to discuss the level of existing judicial dialogue, to then argue
that this dialogue should be further emphasised and developed: as it emerges from
this pilot study, it is insufficient and is not spread widely enough.
* Lecturer in Criminology, Flinders University, Adelaide.
This article has benefited from discussions with Prof. David Smith, Lancaster University, and from
the feedback received at the 2003 British Society of Criminology Conference.
2 For simplification reasons, I will refer to the English and Welsh criminal justice system as the English
criminal justice system.
European Journal of Crime, Cnmmal Law and Criminal Justce, Vol 13/4, 565-584, 2005
© Korinki]ke Bnn NV Printed in the Netherlands](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/eccc13&div=35&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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