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Why Must Trials be Fair?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Stefan Trechsel
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Extract

Why should fairness be a dominant interest of criminal proceedings? Such questions are shocking, and asking them arouses perplexity. Fairness is quite an obvious value, unquestioned in law, criminal proceedings, in human rights and in everyday life.

It is certainly not the purpose of this paper to cast any doubt upon the basic assumption that trials must be fair. However, there is a certain attractiveness in looking for an answer to a question when the answer appears to be obvious. There is also a chance that an analysis of the background of a norm will strengthen that norm and the motivation to respect it. Such a study may even add colour and contour to the norm and assist in its interpretation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 31 , Issue 1-3 , Winter-Summer 1997 , pp. 94 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1997

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Footnotes

*

Professor of Law, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.

References

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12 Cf., the Erismann-case, BGE (Decisions of the [Swiss] Federal Tribunal) 73 IV 165 (1947).

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35 Landis/Goodstein, at 701.

36 I cannot resist the temptation of illustrating this point with an anecdote of my own biography: When, at the age of seventeen, far from even considering the possibility of ever studying law, I went to improve my English in Donegal, I was greatly surprised to be told in a very condescending tone — by people without legal training and repeatedly — that in their system a person was presumed innocent until proven guilty, whereas with us the accused had to prove his innocence. A question of this kind would never have been the topic of casual conversation in Switzerland. I was not even sufficiently aware of our legal system to protest adequately against such absurd accusations.

37 What is open to controversy is the field of application of that guarantee, e.g., with regard to disciplinary proceedings. This issue cannot be discussed in the present context.

38 However, the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment is so universally accepted that it can be regarded as ius cogens. To illustrate this point: A State which, by extradition or expulsion, exposes a person to such treatment contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights in the receiving State commits itself a violation of that Article, whereas the same does not apply with regard to the right to fair trial. If the proceedings in the requesting State do not live up to the standards of Article 6 of the Convention, this does not automatically constitute a violation of Article 6 on the part of the requested State: see e.g., European Court of Human Rights, Soering judgment of 17 July 1989, Series A no. 161.

39 It is contested, in German doctrine, whether there is only one just sentence — the majority opinion is that within a certain frame several different sentences are just; however, there is still no practical system for fixing the limits of that frame; cf. Jescheck, Hans-Heinrich/Weigend, Thomas, Lehrbuch des Strafrechts, Allgemeiner Teil (Berlin, 5th ed., 1996) 880ss. Google Scholar; Dreher, Eduard/Tröndle, Herbert, Strafgesetzbuch und Nebengesetze (Munich, 46th ed., 1993) §46, No. 9ss. Google Scholar

40 Again I cannot resist inserting an anecdote of my personal experience: On the very day when I drafted this passage, I was faced with a problem of incompatibility in Strasbourg. I was acting as Rapporteur in a case brought before the European Commission of Human Rights against Switzerland. One of the parties in the proceedings underlying the application was a former assistant of mine. I therefore declined acting as Rapporteur. The member of the Secretariat then suggested that I might well be the Rapporteur as long as I would not take part in the vote — my name would then not appear on the decision. Despite the philosophical opinion reflected in the question here formulated, I insisted on someone else acting as Rapporteur.