DIRITTO PROCESSUALE PENALE
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Bibliography
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
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, students are strongly recommended to review in advance these subjects, particularly 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 (especially the part related to offences and penalties).
It is higly recommended that students proceed to a first reading of the textbook “Diritto processuale e pratiche criminali”, Zanichelli (Bologna) 2020, II ed.
For students attending, the exam is aimed at verifying the acquisition of the required notions and assessing the expected outcomes: proper use of vocabulary, logical and orderly organization of speech; advanced oral and written language and communication skills.
To that end, attending students only will be given a chance to perform a midterm written test, with multichoice questions in order to verify the knowledge level, and with open questions in order to assess vocabulary, communicative and argumentative skills. Multichoice questions will be given a score of 0.5 each, for a total of 15 points.
The open questions will be of four different types (exposition of a legal concept, comment on a specific provision of law, identification of the rationale for a judgment, comment on a judgment) and will be awarded a score of 4 points each, for a total of 16 points. The total of the written test (for a maximum of 31 points, i.e. 30 cum laude) will be averaged with the oral examination, with a margin of +/- 3 points.
The positive result of the written test (at least 17/30) allows the students to attend the oral exam only on the second part of the course (the “dynamic part”).
The oral exam will be conducted according to the method of the 'inverted cone', moving from a general question to more specific questions.
Non-attending students, as well as attending students who have not passed or have not accepted the result of the written test, shall be examined orally. The first, general question will be aimed to assess their language and argumentative skills. The other, more specific questions will be aimed to assess their knowledge of legal concepts and their ability to identify the dynamics underlying single procedural concepts.
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.
Due to the recent sanitary emergency, according to national rules, the course will be held remotely (on Microsoft Teams): for this reason is higly recommend to carefully follow the present set of indications.
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) 2020, II ed..
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 (below).
For the moot court, students will use the case documents provided for on the e-learning platform.
Students attending the moot court will be excused from studying juvenile court proceedings.
The “attending student” status will be proved through the participation in Microsoft Teams classes and the self-assessment test.
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) 2020, II ed. (available from the beginning of September).
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
In order to allow for a first reading of the suggested textbook, lessons will start on the first week of October.
The first classes will be held with a “blended approach”, interchanging frontal lessons on Microsoft Teams with pre-recorded lessons (slides + voice of the professor).
Under the coordination and direct control of the professor, the majority of 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.
If possible, training of attending students shall be completed through the participation to a moot court and the mandatory attendance to the seminars on interpretation in criminal procedure.