CRIMINAL PROCEDURAL LAW
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Bibliography
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
A good knowledge of Constitutional Law and, especially, of Criminal Law, is required in order to correctly understand the subject and successfully take part in the course.
To this end, attending students in particular are strongly recommended to review in advance - if deemed necessary on the basis of their previous studies and current knowledge - all constitutional norms on fundamental rights of persons and on the organization of the judiciary, as well as the whole program of the criminal law course.
The course aims to develop and strengthen language and communication skills (both oral and written) of students now in their fourth year of legal education, through the study of the fundamentals of criminal trials.
By the end of the course the student shall be able to properly identify and discuss issues related to procedural rules (problem solving and reasoning skills), using the most appropriate technical terms.
The course will deal with all the aspects of criminal trials.
After some methodological premises and constitutional references, the course will examine the “actors” of the criminal proceeding, their acts, the law of evidence and the proceedings.
Then, from a “dynamic” point of view, attention will be given to the different stages of a proceeding (investigations, preliminary hearing, trial, summary trials, hearings and appeals), and then to interim and precautionary measures, sentencing and enforcement.
Finally, the last part of the program will tackle the microsystems of juvenile courts, magistrates or justices of the peace, proceedings for corporate criminal liability, enforcement of foreign judgments and mutual assistance in criminal matters.
Norms, institutions and, more generally, procedural notions shall be analysed in their formants of legislation, case law and legal doctrine.
Texts and teaching materials for attending students
Attending students shall have to study the textbook:
FRANCESCA RUGGIERI, Diritto processuale e pratiche criminali, Zanichelli (Bologna) 2018.
Students are encouraged to read the whole textbook at least once before the course begins.
The seminars will be prepared on the texts used during the workshops and on the textbook NOVANI-RUGGIERI,.
For the moot court, students will use the case documents provided for in class.
Students attending the moot court will be exempted from studying juvenile court proceedings.
The “attending student” status will be proved through the signatures collected during each class. Rollcalls can be made at the beginning and at the end of the class to double check signatures.
A student will be considered “attending” if he/she takes part to at least 80% of the lessons of the whole course. This is relevant for the midterm test (see below, “Assessments of the level of learning”).
Texts and teaching materials for non-attending students
Non-attending students shall have to study:
• FRANCESCA RUGGIERI, Diritto processuale e pratiche criminali (Procedural Law and Criminal Practices), Zanichelli (Bologna) 2017.
and
• STEFANO MARCOLINI, Il principio di correlazione tra accusa e sentenza, Pacini Giuridica 2018
or, in the alternative,
NOVANI-RUGGIERI, Guida minima alla logica processuale. Come scrivere atti e sentenze «corretti», Pacini Giuridica 2019
Under the coordination and direct control of the professor, classes will be partially held by the students themselves, following the order of the “Syllabus” available on the e-learning platform.
All students are recommended to study the topics for each class in advance, to allow the presentations of the topics made by each of the students in class to be the object of a constructive debate among all other students.
To ensure that there can be a successful participation to the debate in class, students are strongly advised against taking notes in a generalized way, as if to substitute the textbook or the code.
The training of attending students shall be completed through the participation to the moot court and the mandatory attendance to the seminars on interpretation in criminal procedure.
Students are encouraged to read the whole textbook at least once before the course begins.