Fair Trials: The European Criminal Procedural Tradition and the European Court of Human Rights

ARTICLE 6 OF THE European Convention on Human Rights has become the defining standard within Europe for determining the fairness of criminal proceedings. Its success has been attributed to the fact that it is not based on a particular model of criminal procedure. In this regard it is no coincidence that much of the literature on comparative criminal procedure law continues to adhere to an understanding of European criminal procedural systems as divided into two groups: the accusatorial and the inquisitorial. In Part One, this understanding of European criminal proceedings is challenged by an examination of the work of various important European jurists of the nineteenth century....