Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in criminal courtrooms to support judicial decision- making. Despite heavy criticism on opacity, complexity, non-contestability, or unfair discrimination, such uses have been favoured, given AI’s promises of efficiency, effectiveness, and accuracy in the overall decision-making process. Focusing on the use of AI-generated evidence, this chapter analyses various European frameworks on evidence and fair trial scheme, the data protection guarantees under the Law Enforcement Directive (LED) and the requirements for AI use by the judiciary set out by the AI Act. We assess whether and to what degree the use of AI in criminal courtrooms can respect fundamental European principles regarding human rights and defence rights.

In covert surveillance operations, police monitor the activities of suspected individuals to gather investigative information, which is then used by public prosecutors and judges in legal proceedings. This practice presents multiple challenges when suspects use different languages and intercept interpreters/translators (IITs) support the process of conveying intercepted communications from investigative stages to court proceedings. This chapter fills a significant knowledge gap regarding the activities, responsibilities and competences of IITs. The authors show how communication surveillance unfolds in three temporally staggered phases each involving different participants: (1) suspects’ original communication, (2) IITs’ translation in collaboration with police and (3) integration of written translations into legal documents by police, public prosecutors and judges. Communication in these phases undergoes significant shifts to extract core information crucial for judicial decision-making, while IITs remain invisible in the process. The chapter concludes with an imperative for a clearly defined delineation of roles and responsibilities for IITs within the criminal justice system.

This chapter examines the legal contestation of language rights within courtroom proceedings, focusing on individuals’ assertions of their right to use a particular language in legal settings. It explores the intersection of legal procedural norms and the politics of language, analysing how these disputes unfold in broader sociopolitical contexts. Two primary types of language rights in legal proceedings are considered: universal language rights, rooted in the right to a fair trial and procedural fairness, and official language rights, derived from legislative recognition of specific languages. While universal language rights are broadly applicable, official language rights depend on jurisdictional policies and historical legacies. Drawing on the interdisciplinary analysis of court judgments and media reports across different jurisdictions, this chapter highlights how official language rights are often unevenly implemented despite their legal recognition. The chapter also demonstrates how language rights are negotiated and contested in legal proceedings, shedding light on the broader implications for multilingual legal orders and the evolving politics of language in legal systems.

Interpreting for defendants who are not conversant with the language of the court is a standard service in jurisdictions that have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This ensures defendants’ linguistic presence and meaningful participation in the judicial process, thereby protecting their right to a fair trial. Yet, interpreting for jurors is rare, despite their crucial role in determining defendants’ guilt or innocence in criminal jury trials. This qualitative study compares two Hong Kong appellate courts’ divergent decisions and arguments presented in the appeal case which contested jurors’ access to the chuchotage interpretation, which is usually audible only to the defendant. The chapter reflects on the practice of court interpreting in the bilingual legal system of Hong Kong and argues for extending interpreting services to jurors to better safeguard defendants’ right to a fair trial. Given that English is a dominant language in jury trials and the majority of the population is Cantonese-speaking, the discussion links interpreting for jurors to upholding the fundamental principle of trial by peers drawn from a cross-section of the community.

Chapter 4 builds on the findings of Chapter 3 by analysing the remaining requirements for the passing of penal sentences, including institutional requirements such as independence and impartiality, as well as more specific due process guarantees prescribed by CA 3, AP II and customary law. The chapter argues that despite the contested direct application of IHRL to non-state actors, IHL incorporates customary human rights law principles and standards of due process developed for states and indirectly provides for their application to armed groups. It explains that while these standards might not have the same potential to ‘outlaw’ armed group trials as the requirement of a ‘regularly constituted’ court, they are nevertheless difficult to meet by non-state actors in practice. This conclusion notwithstanding, the chapter also argues that proposals to downgrade the fair trial standards expected from armed groups should be rejected, as they might equally water down fair trial guarantees expected from states and undermine the principle of belligerent equality.

The Leveller John Lilburne spent repeated spells accused of sedition or treason between 1638 and 1653. He was both a lay lawyer and a cause lawyer, pursuing the full range of what he insisted were the procedural rights of anyone on trial on criminal charges. Though he sometimes pointed to the law of England to make these claims, he was more insistent and consistent in basing these rights on the laws of God, nature, and reason. In this way, he moved from national to natural modes of rights claiming—he argued for human rights. This essay draws on the scores of publications where he made these claims. He never convinced his judges to accept them. But he convinced his jurors and people in the streets. Centuries would pass before the procedural rights he promoted were accepted as law. These rights would be even more fully embraced around the globe in the major human rights declarations of the twentieth century.

This chapter analyses the practical and normative challenges of deceptive – and sometimes manipulative – criminal investigations, in the criminal justice systems of the United States, Germany, and England and Wales. With particular emphasis on ‘entrapment’ by state agents and the custodial interrogation of criminal suspects, it describes how the different legal traditions conceive these issues and considers ongoing attempts to regulate them through complex, multi-level legal frameworks. The chapter concludes with comparative reflections on domestic law experiences and their implications for procedural models, legal culture, jurisprudential principles and conceptions of legitimate political authority in criminal justice.

This chapter examines if the systems of evidence in annulment, failure to act proceedings, and actions for damages, are designed to support private parties’ access to and participation in actions brought directly before the EU courts. Against the backdrop of evidence theory and the so-called procedural abilities doctrine, this chapter argues that, in the context of direct actions, the principle of effective judicial protection receives a restrictive reading. As a result, the requirements that private parties must meet to launch those actions do not, in practice, give way to broad procedural abilities and an unhindered access to the Union courts. These requirements thus seem designed to uphold a (strong) presumption of lawfulness of the EU legislature’s normative action, seeking to preserve the stability and coherence of EU law, rather than to ensure an effective access to, and exercise of the legal remedies included in the EU Treaties’ system of procedures.

The chapter presents an overview of the procedural arrangements adopted at the international criminal jurisdictions, namely the UN ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the International Criminal Court (ICC), covering the main milestones from the initiation of the investigation to trial phase to appeals against the judgment and sentence and review. Before delving into the trajectories of an criminal case before international criminal courts and tribunals, the chapter highlights the origins of international criminal procedure in the common law (Anglo-American, or ‘adversarial’) and civil law (Continental, or ‘inquisitorial’) approaches, resulting in its legal nature as a hybrid scheme where the balance between the domestic influences varies by tribunal and over time due to reforms pursued by judge-legislators (ICTY and ICTR) or by states and, to a lesser extent, judges (ICC). The chapter reviews the role and functions of the main actors in international criminal proceedings, including repeat or professional players (judges, prosecutors, and defence) and other participants such as victims and witnesses and states and international organisations. It also highlights the normative importance of human rights to international criminal process and the imperative of complying with the principles of public, fair and expeditious proceedings.

This chapter discusses procedural rights as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, other Council of Europe instruments, in EU law and in international instruments. Attention is paid to topics like the right to access to a court, the independence and impartiality of courts, effective legal remedies, the right to a fair trial and procedural guarantees in criminal proceedings. In the final section, a short comparison between the different instruments is made.

European Criminal Law has developed into a complex, jagged subject matter, which at the same time has become increasingly important for everyday criminal law practice. On the one hand, this work aims to do comprehensive justice to the complexity of the matter without sacrificing readability. In order to achieve this, the book’s structure enables legal scholars and experienced practitioners to access the information relevant to them in a targeted manner and, at the same time, enables less-oriented readers to gain access to European Criminal Law. Thus, the volume both answers basic questions and offers discussion in more specialised areas. Written by experts in the field, the book offers discussions that are both of the highest academic standards and accessibly readable.

Emerging neurotechnology offers increasingly individualised brain information, enabling researchers to identify mental states and content. When accurate and valid, these brain-reading technologies also provide data that could be useful in criminal legal procedures, such as memory detection with EEG and the prediction of recidivism with fMRI. Yet, unlike in medicine, individuals involved in criminal cases will often be reluctant to undergo brain-reading procedures. This raises the question of whether coercive brain-reading could be permissible in criminal law. Coercive Brain-Reading in Criminal Justice examines this question in view of European human rights: the prohibition of ill treatment, the right to privacy, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and the privilege against self-incrimination. The book argues that, at present, the established framework of human rights does not exclude coercive brain-reading. It does, however, delimit the permissible use of forensic brain-reading without valid consent. This cautionary, cutting-edge book lays a crucial foundation for understanding the future of criminal legal proceedings in a world of ever-advancing neurotechnology.

Emerging neurotechnology offers increasingly individualised brain information, enabling researchers to identify mental states and content. When accurate and valid, these brain-reading technologies also provide data that could be useful in criminal legal procedures, such as memory detection with EEG and the prediction of recidivism with fMRI. Yet, unlike in medicine, individuals involved in criminal cases will often be reluctant to undergo brain-reading procedures. This raises the question of whether coercive brain-reading could be permissible in criminal law. Coercive Brain-Reading in Criminal Justice examines this question in view of European human rights: the prohibition of ill treatment, the right to privacy, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and the privilege against self-incrimination. The book argues that, at present, the established framework of human rights does not exclude coercive brain-reading. It does, however, delimit the permissible use of forensic brain-reading without valid consent. This cautionary, cutting-edge book lays a crucial foundation for understanding the future of criminal legal proceedings in a world of ever-advancing neurotechnology.

The international community is moving towards the abolition of the death penalty but executions continue to lawful in a number of countries under certain circumstances where a crime of murder has been perpetrated at the issue of a fair trial. The mandatory death sentence is, however, always arbitrary. Those under 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the crime may not be lawfully sentenced to death and pregnant women may not be executed. The legality of executing persons with disabilities or older persons is also assessed. Finally, the death penalty in connection with an armed conflict is considered.

The chapter considers the inter-relationship between the right to life and other fundamental human rights, in particular the right to freedom from torture, to family life, to fair trial, to liberty and to security, to privacy, to peaceful assembly, and to food. While the remedy of a survivor of unlawful State action is likely to exist under the right to freedom from inhumane treatment, where the intent of State agents was to kill, a violation of the right to life may also have occurred.

This chapter looks at how the fair trial guarantees under EU law are implemented and scrutinised in civil matters. It argues that the normative and institutional framework for the implementation of these guarantees in the field of civil judicial cooperation is structurally deficient insofar as their application and assessment by domestic courts remain largely exempt from EU oversight. This deficiency is attributed to the limited scope of CJEU jurisdiction over fundamental rights. It is nevertheless suggested that recourse to Article 19(1)(2) TEU by the CJEU as a benchmark for judicial organisation may give the Court a tighter grip and enhance the quality of civil justice across the EU.