The Italian and English Legal Systems Essay -- Law

Judicial systems have been used predominantly throughout the world to address disputes in various contexts, where accused criminals, to law enforcement officers and expert witnesses take part on a daily basis to resolve deputes in judicial manner (Silverman et al 2010). However, characteristics of the judicial systems differ from country/region to another, depending on the basis of the system which may cause an impact on the expert witness. As an explanation for the above statement, it could be said that legal systems fall into two systems, the adversarial system and the inquisitorial system. Conversely, a hybrid between those two systems has formed yet another system which is identified as the mixed system. These derive from historical law and judicial practices which have been practiced for a considerable amount of time, which eventually improved and standardised. Debara.K in 2002 suggested that the foundation to form a jury was based on medieval trail modes of combat where two par ties argue their points to crown a champion. Jonakait (2008) concluded that by the 18th century, the legal systems developed into a stage where lawyers actively participated in English criminal trials making the legal system more â€Å"Adversary†. Paradoxically, inquisitorial system was born right after the 13th century, as a result of disbelief upon the adversarial system. Essentially, this system was formed by the French and then was horizontally transferred into few more countries which ultimately become one of the two dominant legal systems in the world (Johnson.Het al 2008). In this short study, English legal system will be elaborated in comparison to the Italian Legal system. Prior to that, both adversarial and inquisitorial systems shall be discusse... ...and Jones, M. (2008) History of criminal justice,4th ed. Waltham: Elsevier, p.67-70. Jonakait, R. (2008) The rise of the American adversary system: America before England, Widner Law review, 14(1), p.656. Koppen, J. and Penrod, S. (2003) Adversarial versus inquisitorial justice: psychological perspective on criminal justice systems, USA: Springer, p.29. Malleson, K. (2007) the legal system, New York: Oxford University press, p.11-14. Siegal, L. (2010) Criminology: The core, USA: Cengage learning, p.385-387. Silverman, J. and Silverman, S. (2010) how the judicial system works, UK: A Discovery company, p.27. Smith, S. and Langan, B. (1992) Civil jury cases and verdict in large countries, Burean of Justice statistics, - (1), p.3-10. Wall, W. (2010) Forensic Science in courts: the role of the expert witness, West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons, p.2-56.