procedural law

Law that prescribes the procedures and methods for enforcing rights and duties and for obtaining redress (e.g., in a suit).

It is distinguished from substantive law (i.e., law that creates, defines, or regulates rights and duties). Procedural law is a set of established forms for conducting a trial and regulating the events that precede and follow it. It prescribes rules relative to jurisdiction, pleading and practice, jury selection, evidence, appeal, execution of judgments, representation of counsel, costs, registration (e.g., of a stock offer), prosecution of crime, and conveyancing (transference of deeds, leases, etc.), among other matters.

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Introduction

also called  adjective law 

      the law governing the machinery of the courts and the methods by which both the state and the individual (the latter including groups, whether incorporated or not) enforce their rights in the several courts. Procedural law prescribes the means of enforcing rights or providing redress of wrongs and comprises rules about jurisdiction, pleading and practice, evidence, appeal, execution of judgments, representation of counsel, costs, and other matters. Procedural law is commonly contrasted with substantive law, which constitutes the great body of law and defines and regulates legal rights and duties. Thus, whereas substantive law would describe how two people might enter into a contract, procedural law would explain how someone alleging a breach of contract might seek the courts' help in enforcing the agreement.

      To be effective, law must go beyond the determination of the rights and obligations of individuals and collective bodies to say how these rights and obligations can be enforced. Moreover, it must do this in a systematic and formal way, because the failure to do so would render the legal system inefficient, unfair, and biased and, as a result, possibly upset the social peace. Embodying this systematization and formalization, procedural law constitutes the sum total of legal rules designed to ensure the enforcement of rights by means of the courts.

      Because procedural law is a means for enforcing substantive rules, there are different kinds of procedural law, corresponding to the various kinds of substantive law. criminal law is the branch of substantive law dealing with punishment for offenses against the public and has as its corollary criminal procedure, which indicates how the sanctions of criminal law must be applied. Substantive private law, which deals with the relations between private (i.e., nongovernmental) persons, whether individuals or corporate bodies, has as its corollary the rules of civil procedure. Because the object of judicial proceedings is to arrive at the truth by using the best available evidence, there must be procedural laws of evidence to govern the presentation of witnesses, documentation, and physical proof.

      This article addresses procedural laws as they apply to noncriminal lawsuits in the Anglo-American common law and the civil law systems used in continental European countries, Japan, and Latin America and in many legal systems in the developing world. It also contains a much briefer description of the procedural characteristics of Islamic jurisprudence. Substantive laws are covered in such articles as criminal law, business law (contract), and constitutional law. For treatment of administrative procedural law, see public administration.

Stephen C. Yeazell

Civil procedure

      The rules of every procedural system reflect choices between worthy goals. Different systems, for example, may primarily seek truth, or fairness between the parties, or a speedy resolution, or a consistent application of legal principles. Sometimes these goals will be compatible with each other, but sometimes they will clash. When this happens, the rules of the system reveal the priorities it has established among these values.

      The world's two most widely used procedural systems have developed different ways of implementing such choices. One system centralizes responsibility for developing and deciding disputes and maintaining some consistency in legal rules, giving primary responsibility to state officials—i.e., the judiciary. The other path decentralizes power, giving the parties and their representatives primary responsibility for presenting factual evidence and legal arguments to a judge and sometimes also a jury, whose role is generally restricted to deciding which party has presented the better argument. The first system, usually referred to as civil-law procedure, is often associated with Roman law. The second system, usually called common-law procedure, is often found in countries that derive their legal system from that of early modern England. Both systems have characteristic strengths and weaknesses. Civil-law procedure, emphasizing the responsibility of a professional judiciary, may reduce the likelihood that the outcome of lawsuits will turn on the wealth of the parties and increase the likelihood that outcomes and rules will remain consistent; the same characteristics, however, may leave the parties feeling that they have not been fairly heard and that the facts have not been adequately probed. Common-law procedure, emphasizing party control of litigation, may leave the parties more content that their particular dispute, in all its factual complexity, has been heard, is thriftier with governmental funds, and depends less on a specially trained judiciary. It may, however, lead the parties to spend large sums on litigation expenses and may result in legal rulings that are somewhat untidy and inconsistent.

      Within these two broad family groupings, procedural systems must make other choices. Who will bear the cost of litigation? What depth of factual investigation characterizes ordinary litigation? How flexibly may claims and defenses be revised and how easily may additional parties be added? Once a lawsuit is concluded, how broadly does it preclude subsequent litigation between the parties? Each of these questions has specific, technical answers in any given legal system, answers that have changed over time and that collectively define the system's contribution to the society in which it is embedded.

      One seeking to compare the civil process of different legal cultures must also understand that procedural rules interact with choices about the shape of government, access to lawyers, the level of investment in the legal system, and the competence, honesty, and diligence of public officials. A procedural system can have fine rules but will not work well if judges are corrupt or officials refuse to enforce unpopular judgments. Conversely, diligent and honest officials and lawyers can compensate for suboptimal procedural regimes.

Historical development

Roman law and the Islamic legal tradition

      Roman law went through three phases, the last two of which exercised long-lasting influences. The first phase required strict compliance with highly formal rules of pleading. During the second, classical period, beginning in the 1st century BC, a more flexible formulary procedure developed. Lawsuits were divided into two parts, the first being devoted to defining the issues, the second to deciding the case. The suit began with the parties presenting their claims and defenses orally to a judicial official called a praetor, whose main function was to hear the allegations of the parties and then to frame a formula or instruction applicable to the issue presented by the parties. The praetor did not decide the merits of the case. Instead, with the consent of the parties, he selected from a list of approved individuals a private individual (judex) whose duty it was to hear witnesses, examine the proof, and render a decision in accordance with the applicable law contained in the formula. The procedure facilitated growth and change in the law: by adapting existing formulas, or modifying them, the praetors were, in effect, able to change substantive rules of law.

      This two-phase process allowed expert development of law while ensuring that the parties themselves would choose the person who rendered a final, unappealable decision in their case. Civil procedure in classical ancient Rome thus distinctively combined professional and lay participation, state authority, and voluntary choice of arbiters by the parties. Its ideals and some of its mechanisms had a marked influence on later legal development in Europe (though to a lesser extent in England) and, through borrowing, on some modern Asian legal systems.

      The formulary system (so called from the formulas issued by the praetors), with its separation of fact-finding and determination of the law, operated in Rome but not in the many provinces (province) conquered by the Romans. Instead, provincial administrative officials rendered justice under general administrative powers. In the late imperial period, the provincial procedure displaced classical procedure in Rome itself. In this third phase of Roman law, the creative role of the praetor came to an end, the formulas were abolished, and lawsuits were no longer divided into two phases, instead being initiated by a written pleading. Appeals from first-tier to second-tier judges became possible, but the procedure lent itself to delay.

      The Roman legal tradition was passed on to later generations through the Corpus Juris Civilis (Justinian, Code of), a compilation of centuries of Roman jurisprudence. Collected in the first part of the 6th century AD by order of the eastern emperor Justinian I, this text became a main source for ecclesiastical and modern civil law. As jurists compiled this monument to legal learning and organization, the Roman empire in the west lay in ruins, having been overrun by German tribes. The western empire had been unable to provide its citizens with security from attack, much less with the conditions of civil legal order. The immediate future of western European law, therefore, lay with the tribal legal systems.

      In the eastern empire a new religion, a new civilization, and a new legal system arose: Islam and Islamic law (Sharīʿah). Based on the life and teachings of Muhammad, Islamic law held sway for almost 1,000 years in an empire whose size, civilization, and might were comparable to those of Rome in the west and China in the east. Islamic jurists developed a complex and learned system of substantive law. Procedurally, its most notable characteristics were the absence of an appellate system and the maintenance of a robust tradition of legal learning independent of the state. Although scholars have disagreed over the extent to which actual rulings of Islamic judges and the content of Islamic law were subservient to state interests, the tradition of learned, independent jurists survives to the present day. The absence of appellate review and the independence of the juristic schools—each tracing their interpretations to the Prophet Muhammad—created great and learned debates but also made coordination and predictability difficult. Different schools and different jurists sometimes disagreed, and in the absence of authoritative rulings litigants and governments faced a difficult choice. They could tolerate inconsistent outcomes until, over time, jurists came to agreement, or they could, somewhat arbitrarily, declare that one side had the better argument. Today, most Islamic nations preserve Islamic substantive law but also observe some system of civil-law procedure.

      Unlike classical and imperial Roman law, which was the product of a largely secular society, the Islamic legal tradition has remained firmly rooted in religious texts and practices. This feature limited its potential for spreading to non-Islamic societies. One can, however, identify features that it shares with other legal systems. Like today's civil-law systems, the Islamic tradition depends on an elite cadre of highly educated jurists, who probe and shape the parties' cases and who assume responsibility for rendering a just decision in accordance with an elaborate body of authoritative texts. Like classical Roman law, the Islamic tradition permits no appeal; the original decision is also the final decision. One sees a much milder version of the same principle in today's common-law procedure, which, though it permits appeals, limits their grounds far more than civil-law systems.

Medieval European law

      In contrast to the procedure of the late Roman Empire, which depended heavily on state officials, the procedure of the conquering Germanic (Germanic law) tribes embodied the opposite principle—party control and broad popular participation. Because these nomadic cultures relied on lay participation, their legal procedures had to be relatively brief and capable of yielding simple answers even in complex disputes. In court, which often was the assembly of all the freeborn men of the district, the parties had to formulate their allegations in precise, traditional language; the use of improper words could mean the loss of the case. If the parties surmounted this pleading stage, the court determined what method of proof should be used: ordeal, judicial combat between the parties or their champions, or wager of law (compurgation) (whereby each side had to attempt to obtain more persons who were willing to swear on their oaths as to the uprightness of the party they were supporting). Such a system might resolve individual disputes that threatened tribal peace, but it could not develop into a systematic legal tradition. Nor was it well adapted to resolving the frequent questions of land ownership in the settled, if often violent, feudal states into which post-Roman Europe evolved.

      Alongside Germanic forms of popular justice, Roman legal procedure survived in various traditions. A modified form of late Roman procedure was used in the ecclesiastical courts (ecclesiastical court) that applied the still-developing canon law. This late Roman-canonical procedure gradually supplanted the Germanic tribal traditions in Italy and France, and somewhat later in Germany, though not all elements of the Germanic procedure disappeared. By contrast, in Scandinavia indigenous procedure adapted itself and was able to resist displacement by foreign law.

      With its heavy reliance on written, rather than oral, presentations, the Roman-canonical procedure contrasted markedly with that of Germanic tribal law. The Roman tradition required representation by learned counsel and judges, who were quite scarce in the early medieval period. Precise rules governed the presentation of evidence; for example, the concordant testimony of two male witnesses usually amounted to “full proof,” and one witness was ordinarily insufficient to prove any matter, unless he was a high ecclesiastic. Witnesses could ordinarily testify to the court only by submitting a written summary of their testimony prepared by a court clerk or notary. This complex and slow procedure might have worked reasonably well for elaborate disputes involving land ownership, but it was ill-suited to the day-to-day needs of commerce. As a result, special courts operated by and for businessmen sprang up in important mercantile centres to deal with matters of maritime (maritime law) and inland commerce.

      As the Middle Ages came to a close, there was an increasing tendency to favour written over oral evidence. Simultaneously, there was a tendency to create “nationalized” versions of the general Roman-canonical procedure prevalent in much of Europe. In 1667 in France this led to the enactment by Louis XIV of the Ordonnance Civile, also known as Code Louis, a comprehensive code regulating civil procedure in all of France in a uniform manner. The Code Louis continued, with some improvements, many of the basic principles of procedure that had prevailed since the late Middle Ages.

English common law

      Originally, procedure in English local and feudal courts resembled quite closely that of other countries with a Germanic legal tradition. Unlike the continental European countries, however, England never romanized its indigenous procedure but instead developed a procedure of its own capable of substantial growth and adjustment. England's ability to do this was likely a result of two factors, both related to the strong monarchical system that followed the Norman Conquest (1066): the creation of the jury system and the establishment of a centralized royal court system. The jury allowed the flexibility of lay participation while offering a substitute for the antiquated methods of proof of the traditional Germanic law—ordeal, trial by battle, and wager of law. The central courts led to the creation of a definite legal tradition, the common law, and to the administration of justice through permanent professional judges and their attendant clerks, instead of the popular assemblies or groups of wise men who rendered justice elsewhere.

      In the years immediately after the Norman invasion, royal courts could be used only if permitted by a special royal writing (writ), or writ, issued in the name of the king. Such a writ might, for example, direct the defendant to return the land or explain why he refused to do so or, later on, direct the sheriff to bring the defendant before the court so that he could be required to answer for his conduct. Writs were at first issued only when there was a complaint that local or feudal courts were not rendering justice. Later, they were issued in cases involving land and gradually standardized and extended to cover almost all aspects of civil justice. Suitors sought royal justice because it offered good enforcement—the sheriff, a royal official, was responsible for carrying out judicial orders—and because they liked its procedure—royal courts abandoned much of the awkward Germanic law of proof in favour of trial by jury sooner than did local courts.

      As the system of royal courts developed, counsel came to play a central role. The parties, through their counsel, formulated the issues to be settled through their pleadings (pleading) before the court in London. After the pleading stage, counsel would try the issues before a jury in the county where the facts arose. The mechanics of pleading, originally oral and simple, gradually became highly complex. The plaintiff had to plead facts that came within the writ used to start the action; the defendant generally could either deny the facts asserted by the plaintiff or assert specific defenses. (For modern pleading practices, see below Preliminaries to proceedings: Pleadings (procedural law).) Common law permitted appeals from most judicial rulings but required the parties to wait until the case was over before seeking review.

      The complexities of the common-law procedure led some parties to request relief directly from the king, who was then the ultimate fountainhead of justice. The king regularly transferred such requests to the royal chancery (Chancery, Court of)—that is, the office of the lord chancellor—which, in this way, developed into another court called the chancery. The chancery court was supposed to deal equitably with cases in which the strict rules of the common law failed. In the course of time this function of the chancery developed into a body of well-defined rules known as “ equity.” Until the 16th century the chancellors were generally ecclesiastics; hence, procedure in chancery to obtain equity was to some extent influenced by canonical procedures. In particular, there was no jury trial, no writ circumscribing a precise cause of action, and no in-court testimony of witnesses. Instead, litigants could compel (by court orders called subpoenas) the out-of-court statements of witnesses, whose sworn testimony would be recorded as the basis for the chancellor's decision. Equity also differed from common law in allowing immediate appeal of every judicial ruling, a practice that made suits in equity notoriously slow. The procedure of the common-law courts and the existence of a separate procedure for equity matters were both adopted in the United States.

      In the 19th century there were substantial reforms of legal procedure in both England and the United States. These involved several related approaches: (1) a reform in court organization, doing away with separate courts of equity and establishing a more rational system of appeals courts, (2) a reform of pleading, largely abandoning the need to plead a specific cause of action based on writs, (3) the grant to judges of limited power to promulgate rules of procedure, and (4) the development of the law of evidence. In the United States the first three of these principles were initially embodied in the New York Code of Civil Procedure of 1848, which many other states subsequently adopted. In the 20th century the notion gained ground that legislation was too slow and too inexpert a means for the adoption of new procedural rules. This belief led to the Rules Enabling Act of 1934, which authorized the Supreme Court of the United States to adopt (subject to congressional veto) Rules of Civil Procedure for the federal district courts, though some matters, such as subject-matter jurisdiction, remained governed by acts of Congress. There were similar developments in many of the states and also in England and Wales. At present most U.S. states, even those that do not directly adopt federal rules, have procedural regimes that closely resemble that of the federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

      Many of these simplifications made it easier for a case to reach trial. Once at trial, however, the case encountered the law of evidence. While 19th-century legislatures were rewriting procedural rules, the courts were creating an elaborate and often very technical body of doctrine concerning who could testify about what in a trial. This growing body of law enabled courts to exercise greater control over trial outcomes. An error in the admission of evidence was enough for an appellate court to reverse a verdict.

      In some respects the two trends in 19th-century procedure counteracted one another: simplified pleading and court reform made it easier to get to trial on the merits; evidentiary doctrines created the opportunity for numerous errors at trial. By the end of the century a frequently voiced criticism was that appellate courts granted too many new trials as a result of evidentiary errors. Responding to this complaint, 20th-century reforms in all common-law countries preserved the law of evidence but no longer viewed small errors as sufficient for reversal of a judgment.

Civil-law codifications

      Paralleling the common-law changes described above, civil-law systems underwent several periods of reform in the 19th century, rationalizing procedural rules while maintaining the principle of judicial guidance of litigation.

      Dissatisfaction with the system of judicial administration was a major cause of the French Revolution of 1789. Thus, one of the earliest actions taken by the newly constituted National Assembly was the creation of a new court system (1790). But no reform of a lasting nature was undertaken in the field of civil procedure. The introduction of a jury system was debated but was adopted for criminal cases only.

 Napoleon (Napoleon I) attempted to restore normality and unity to France after the Revolution through the creation of codes encompassing an entire field of law (law code) and containing the best of both the old pre-Revolutionary and the Revolutionary law. The Napoleonic Code of Civil Procedure of 1806 retained some procedures created during the Revolution but relied heavily on the 1667 Code Louis.

      During the 19th century, codifications of procedural law were enacted in other civil-law countries, including Italy in 1865 and Germany in 1877. They usually retained large elements of the Roman-canonical or French procedure and were often cumbersome and slow. Austria broke new ground in its Code of Civil Procedure of 1895, which adopted comprehensively the principle of oral presentation: only matters presented orally in open court were important for a decision of the case; writings could have only a preparatory role; witnesses no longer were heard before a delegated judge who prepared a written record but were heard by the court or judge who actually decided the case; the parties were obligated to present their cases fully and truthfully; and the judge was directed to make certain that all relevant facts were stated. These notions served as a model for many other countries when they amended their codes of civil procedure.

      The Austrian model inspired changes made in French civil procedure beginning in 1958. Originally adopted in a series of individual decrees, they were consolidated in the new Code of Civil Procedure of 1975. Similarly, following earlier amendments to the 1877 German code that had strengthened the role of the judge, a statute called the simplification amendment, which was designed to expedite proceedings further, was adopted in 1976 in West Germany and extended to all of Germany following the country's reunification in 1990.

      The Japanese Civil Code of the 1890s was modeled largely on the German Code of 1877; it was revised in 1926 to integrate Austrian ideas on the rule of the judge and to expedite procedures. Present Japanese (Japanese law) law blends procedure rules largely based on the German and Austrian models with some features of Anglo-American origin, adopted during the American occupation of Japan following World War II.

Civil-law procedure and common-law procedure

      As suggested above, one can contrast civil- and common-law systems by asking who has the power and initiative to guide and shape litigation. In Anglo-American common-law procedure, parties and their lawyers carry responsibility for gathering and presenting evidence and moving a case forward, and the judge's role is largely limited to deciding which of the parties has made the more convincing presentation. In the civil-law procedure typical of Europe and many Asian (Asia) countries, greater emphasis is placed on the judge as a guarantor of a just outcome of the case regardless of the lawyers' abilities. To this end, the judge may function as an investigator, questioning witnesses and parties as to the factual matters of the case. In some countries (e.g., Germany and Japan), the judge is required to guide the proceedings—for instance, by suggesting to the parties that they direct their attention to a particular point of fact or law.

      The contrast between these two systems extends to many other features. The American common-law system preserves substantial lay participation in the form of the civil jury (see below). Trial courts in common-law systems typically enjoy more power and greater freedom from appellate control than is the case in civil-law systems, in which appellate courts exercise broad supervisorial powers. Civil law judges constitute a separately trained professional elite, whose entire careers involve judicial service. Common-law judges, by contrast, are appointed in mid-career from among the practicing bar, bringing to the bench less professional training but broader practical experience.

The impact of the jury

      Probably the single most dramatic difference between civil- and common-law procedure is the institution of the civil jury trial, which is now essentially confined to the United States. Providing a trial by jury, however, creates other procedural requirements and pressures. For example, a lay jury can decide the question before it only if all factual matters are presented in a straightforward manner. Common-law systems thus need to establish beforehand the factual matters in dispute. In civil-law procedure, this is less important, as the case is handled over a series of hearings by professional judges. Furthermore, because a jury of laypersons cannot be kept together for an indefinite period of time, a jury trial must be conducted in a concentrated fashion. This gives the Anglo-American trial its peculiar and occasionally dramatic character. Where the determination of factual issues is entrusted to a professional judge (who, presumably, will be available for a considerable time), the process can be extended over several shorter hearings. Because a disbanded jury cannot easily be reassembled, the evidence presented by parties must be available at the beginning of the trial. Consequently, common-law systems use procedures (called “ discovery”) that enable the parties to obtain before trial information they will need at the trial (see below Discovery procedures (procedural law)).

      When factual matters are to be decided by a body of laypersons, the law must ensure that the jury will not be misled by evidence that is plausible or emotionally compelling on the surface. There is less need to guard against that danger whenever professional judges make factual determinations. Some features of the common-law doctrines of evidence can thus be traced to concerns that the jury not hear misleading forms of evidence.

      Finally, because the jury decides questions of fact while the judge decides only questions of law, in common-law procedure a clear distinction must be drawn from the beginning between factual and legal issues. Conversely, in civil-law procedure, where the judges decide both questions of fact and questions of law, there is normally no need to make a sharp distinction between the two until a case reaches the highest level of civil courts, where only questions of law are open for review.

Convergence of civil- and common-law procedure

      Despite the distinctions between civil and common law just described, there arguably have been recent trends toward convergence. In private-law matters, courts in civil-law countries do not initiate proceedings on their own; rather, they decide only claims brought forward by the parties and normally only on the basis of evidence proposed by them. Indeed, in practice they give the parties much of the responsibility for suggesting lines of proof. Nor do judges in common-law countries always play merely the role of an impartial arbiter. In some cases, such as those involving the welfare of children, they often take a more active role in seeking out the facts.

      Because a series of separate hearings make a proceeding unduly long, procedural reforms in some civil-law countries favour (but do not mandate) a single, well-prepared, main hearing at which the decision is reached. By contrast, in England, where the civil jury trial originated, the jury has fallen into almost complete disuse in civil cases, except in suits of defamation. In the United States, although trial by jury is a constitutional right, jury trials occur in fewer than 5 percent of filed civil actions. Many civil actions in the United States consist of a series of pretrial motions, often involving discovery, at the end of which the case is terminated by settlement or by pretrial judgment. In such cases—the great majority—the process in many respects resembles the civil law system: a series of staged judicial rulings rather than a compressed trial of the entire case.

The framework for litigation

Constitutional (Constitution of the United States of America) bases of civil procedure

      In many legal systems substantive law, set forth in constitutions or similar documents, constrains procedural rules. Such constraints require procedural provisions to meet some overriding tenet either of fairness or of governmental supremacy. These rules may assume special importance in federal systems such as that of the United States and in quasi-federal systems such as that of the European Union.

      The U.S. Supreme Court (Supreme Court of the United States) holds that all procedural rules, whether found in statutes, rules of court, or case law, must be consistent with the mandates of the U.S. Constitution—in particular with the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments. In accordance with this principle, a person cannot be required to defend a suit originating in a state other than the one in which he resides unless he has had enough contact with that state not to offend “traditional notions of fairness and substantial justice.” “Due process” also implies that a party may not be deprived of substantial rights without having had an opportunity to present his side of the case. Analogous provisions in the European Union guarantee individuals access to court and to judicial review of certain governmental actions. As a result of the adoption in many other countries of written constitutions with legally binding fundamental rights—and of the creation, after World War II, of special constitutional courts—constitutional rules granting a right to be heard and access to justice (often including access to legal aid) were created. These developments were reinforced by certain international agreements, in particular Article 6 of the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Jurisdiction, competence, and venue

      The words jurisdiction and competence refer generally to the power of an official body (legislative, judicial, or administrative) to handle a specific matter. “Judicial jurisdiction” refers to the power of a court to act. That power may depend on the relationship of the court to the subject matter of the action; in such an instance one speaks generally of subject-matter jurisdiction. Thus, a particular court may have the power to decide a dispute about contract but not one about copyright. The jurisdiction of a court also may depend on the relationship between the court and the defendant in the action. Thus, a court in France may lack power to decide a dispute between two Japanese businesses that have no connection with France. Important conceptual differences over this question exist between common-law countries, which usually refer to this problem as the question of “jurisdiction over the defendant,” and civil-law countries, which are likely to subdivide the problem into questions of “international jurisdiction (conflict of laws)” (i.e., which country may take the case) and questions of “territorial jurisdiction” (i.e., courts in which part of the country may take the case). In the United States the due process clause of the Constitution imposes limits on the states' power to confer jurisdiction on their courts; consequently, a substantial amount of preliminary skirmishing may occur over the question of whether the plaintiff has brought suit in a state that has jurisdiction over a given defendant.

       venue refers to the territorial location in which a litigation should be conducted. The most common venue rule is that the action may be initiated where either the plaintiff or the defendant resides, where the cause of action arose, or, if real property is involved, where the real property is situated. Even when all formal legal requirements of jurisdiction and venue are fulfilled, courts in the United States are sometimes authorized to dismiss an action or to transfer it to another court on the ground that the choice of court will create serious inconvenience for the parties or the court.

Parties

      Every civil lawsuit involves at least two parties—a plaintiff making a claim and a defendant resisting it. Beyond this basic requirement, legal systems differ slightly in their approach to the question of whether other parties may or must be joined.

      In order to participate in a lawsuit as a plaintiff or as a defendant, a party must have the capacity to sue and must be a “proper” party (i.e., have standing before the court). Adult individuals have legal capacity to sue or be sued unless they are mentally incapacitated. Corporations (corporation) and even groups of individuals without formal corporate status generally may assert rights in court and are liable to suit by others. The law obliges certain persons to act through another person. These persons, such as minors and those determined to be mentally incompetent, usually must act through parents or guardians. Corporations can frequently sue in their own name, though some countries (such as Sweden) require that actions involving a corporate entity be brought by or against its board of directors or a similar body.

      All legal systems impose a requirement that a plaintiff have an interest for which he seeks protection in the lawsuit. Generally, only persons who have suffered an injury that can be remedied by the outcome of the lawsuit may sue—a doctrine sometimes called “standing” to sue. Furthermore, only a person who owns (or claims to own) the right or obligation under suit can be a party to a suit involving that right. In the United States this rule is frequently called the real party in interest rule, and similar rules exist in other countries (e.g., Italy and France). The real party in interest ordinarily will be the person who will ultimately benefit from any recovery obtained. In matters of public law, the ability to sue is sometimes restricted less narrowly than in pure private-law actions. For example, in France and in some U.S. states, citizens can bring actions in court to attack certain governmental expenditures.

      A person ordinarily decides for himself whether he wants to attempt to enforce his rights by legal proceedings. Under some circumstances, however, his refusal to do so may cause harm to others. To address this situation, the laws of many countries authorize creditors, for example, to prosecute actions of their debtors if the debtors fail to do so.

      Legal controversies are not necessarily limited to two persons—one plaintiff and one defendant. For example, in actions involving co-ownership or joint obligations, the rights of several parties may be so intertwined that it is impossible to adjudicate the rights of one person standing alone. In such circumstances, the procedural rules of many countries require that all such persons be made parties to the lawsuit. In other cases the presence of several individuals may be merely useful, but not absolutely essential, to a resolution of a dispute. In such cases the law simply “permits” the individuals to join, or be brought into, the lawsuit. It is also possible that persons not originally participating in a lawsuit may find that a suit directly or indirectly affects their interests. To avoid a multiplicity of actions, the law may authorize such persons to intervene in the pending lawsuit if their own claim has a sufficiently close connection in law or fact. Furthermore, in certain cases a defendant may bring third parties into an action, through a device called impleader, when, for example, these parties are or may be liable to the defendant on account of the claim asserted against him.

      Ordinarily, a judgment binds only the parties to the lawsuit. In some situations, however, a large group of persons may stand in the same legal situation, as when they are subject to the same governmental or corporate practice or charge. Each such individual could in theory bring a separate action, but individual actions would be inefficient (and uneconomic if each individual injury was small) and might result in contradictory rulings. To overcome these obstacles, the law in the United States authorizes class actions, in which a limited number of persons sue to vindicate the rights of a much larger group; all members of this class of persons may be bound by the outcome of the suit if the active members adequately represent the absentees. Class actions have been used to challenge racial segregation, to redress overcharges and other unlawful pricing practices, and, more controversially, to seek redress in instances of widespread personal injury. Countries with a civil-law tradition generally do not authorize class actions, though in some limited situations proceedings brought by one person may affect the rights of other persons who are not party to the suit (e.g., sometimes associations, such as consumers' groups, are authorized to sue).

      In civil-law countries a person wishing to support the claim of some other party must proceed by way of direct intervention. In the United States an individual who wants to promote the claim of some other party may seek to present the court with an amicus curiae (Latin: “friend of the court”) brief, which will contain arguments in favour of the person the individual supports.

      A person's capacity to sue or be sued ordinarily is not affected if the person is an alien or nonresident, unless a state of war exists between his home country and the country in which he wishes to sue. Even a state of war generally does not destroy the capacity to be sued, though an alien may experience some disadvantages. For example, many countries withhold legal aid from aliens, particularly if the alien's home country does not grant reciprocity. More important, many European and Latin American (Latin America, history of) countries require alien plaintiffs to post security to guarantee that they will be able to reimburse the defendant for the expenses of the lawsuit, and sometimes even for additional damages, should the alien lose the case. As a result of the 1954 Hague Convention on Civil Procedure and numerous other treaties, this requirement has been eliminated between many countries. In the United States and in most other countries with a common-law tradition, the nationality of a party is not material to the issue of whether security for costs is due.

Stages leading to trial or main hearing

      Anglo-American procedure traditionally divides lawsuits into two stages: the pretrial stage and the trial stage. At the pretrial stage, the parties notify each other of their claims and defenses and probe their factual foundations; at the trial stage, they or their counsel attempt to prove their factual contentions before a judge or jury, primarily through the oral examination of witnesses. The verdict and the judgment based on it follow immediately thereafter. In practice, the pretrial phase usually ends the lawsuit, either because the parties reach converging assessments of the dispute or because the judge makes a dispositive judgment based on the material uncovered in this phase of the proceedings.

      In civil-law countries the procedure typically consists of a series of hearings at which counsel argue their clients' position, submit documentary evidence, and suggest lines of inquiry for the judge to pursue. These preliminary hearings may culminate in the civil-law analogue to trial, a main hearing, sometimes conducted before a multijudge court. The sections below describe the main components of the pretrial or preliminary stages of an action.

The summons and the requirements of service

      Basic fairness requires telling a defendant that he is being sued, so he can either admit liability (and thus avoid the cost of suit) or prepare to defend himself. Typically, such notice must be served promptly. The notice may consist merely of a statement that the plaintiff is suing the defendant and that the defendant must respond by a specified day or be in default. Such a notice is commonly referred to as a summons. To mount a defense, the defendant also needs more specific information about the nature of the claim against him; the plaintiff's first pleading, the complaint, contains that information and is usually delivered to the defendant with the summons.

      In common-law countries it originally was necessary to deliver the summons to the defendant in person (personal service). Now, other forms of service to notify the defendant are permissible, provided their intent is to apprise the defendant that the suit is pending. Various jurisdictions authorize certified mail, fax, and e-mail service of process in at least some circumstances. Service by publication in a newspaper is generally authorized only when no other form of service is reasonably possible.

      In civil-law countries the summons proper is often combined with the statement of plaintiff's claim in a single document (assignation in France, citazione in Italy). Other formal rules often must be observed, and the documents sometimes must be written on paper bearing tax stamps. The document need not be served to the individual himself; a member of the household, or even a neighbour or janitor, usually will be an adequate recipient.

Provisional remedies

      Lawsuits frequently take a long time, and the passage of time can itself be an injustice. A judgment in an action concerning whether the defendant has the right to cut down certain trees, for instance, will be of little value if, while the suit is pending, the trees have already been cut down. For this reason, legal systems generally provide so-called provisional remedies that enable the plaintiff to obtain some guarantees that any judgment obtained against the defendant will not be in vain. Provisional remedies involve a conflict between speed—to prevent harm pending suit—and accuracy—an improperly granted provisional remedy will harm the defendant.

      Although the legal technicalities are often different, there is a remarkable similarity between remedies in common-law and civil-law countries. The provisional remedies often are available even before an action has been initiated, though in such cases an action must ordinarily be prosecuted promptly after the grant of the remedy.

      Some remedies serve to prevent the disappearance either of funds required for the payment of the eventual judgment or of specific property (property law) involved in litigation. This purpose is served by attachment (bringing the property under the custody of the law), replevin (an action to recover property taken unlawfully), or other similar remedies. The remedy usually is granted by a judge at the request of the plaintiff, upon a showing of facts that make it probable that the plaintiff has a good claim and that the plaintiff's rightful recovery is threatened by delay.

      Other remedies are intended to stabilize a situation pending the outcome of litigation. In such instances, courts frequently are authorized to issue orders (known in Anglo-American law as temporary injunctions (injunction)) commanding the parties to do or not to do certain acts that may cause irreparable harm to the other side while the suit is pending. These remedies are sometimes granted in a proceeding in which the defendant is not initially heard (i.e., ex parte); except in such cases of urgency, however, concerns of fairness (and in the United States of due process) require notice to the defendant and an opportunity to be heard before any significant judicial order. In countries with a common-law tradition, a person disobeying an injunction issued by a court is guilty of “ contempt of court” and can be punished quite severely. In civil-law countries, punishment for contempt is largely unknown, and because broad orders to defendants may therefore be difficult to enforce, such orders are sometimes limited to specific situations.

Pleadings (pleading)

      Developed legal systems need some way to identify the main elements of the parties' dispute: are they disagreeing about facts, about law, or about both? Existing legal systems use three methods to uncover the parties' contentions: pleadings, judicially supervised investigation, and party-driven discovery.

      Pleadings are the formal written documents by which the parties set forth their contentions. Pleadings serve to give notice of the nature of the claim or defense, state the facts that each party believes to exist, narrow the number of issues that ultimately must be decided, provide a means to determine whether the party has a valid claim or defense, and create a record of what has been actually decided once the suit is ended.

      Until the middle of the 19th century, common-law (common law) systems relied heavily on pleadings to state the legal theory relied upon and to narrow the issues to be tried. In theory, common-law plaintiffs and defendants alternately submitted documents, each responding to the one that preceded it, and narrowed the field of conflict until there remained only one issue, upon which the trial would be based. In practice, legal fictions (legal fiction) and judicial interpretation of pleading rules often defeated these aims, sending the parties to trial with little information about their adversaries' contentions. Starting in about 1850, a series of procedural reforms occurred in England and the United States. The first reforms sought to remedy pleading itself, requiring pleaders to emphasize the facts underlying the parties' cause of action and thereby to better disclose the roots of the dispute (sometimes referred to as “fact pleading”). Disputes about the meaning of “facts” and “cause of action” largely vitiated this effort, however, which led to further changes.

      Starting in the mid-20th century, rules and codes of civil procedure deemphasized pleading and sought instead to narrow the controversy through discovery and other pretrial processes. Most American pleading rules now require only “notice pleadings,” in which the plaintiff gives “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief” and the defendant gives a “short and plain” statement of his defenses. For most actions, there is no requirement that legal theory be stated in the pleading or that facts be alleged specifically. Other rules permit the parties to plead alternative or contradictory claims or defenses and provide that ordinarily only two pleadings, the complaint and the answer, shall be permitted. These changes have downgraded the importance of the pleading stage of the lawsuit. The primary function of the pleadings is now only to give a general notice of the subject matter of the suit to the opposing party. As pretrial stages develop the facts, parties can readily amend their pleadings.

      Under modern civil-law (civil law) systems, pleading problems have not been as pronounced as in Anglo-American law, in part because these systems rely on early and frequent judicial supervision to clarify the dispute. European pleadings consequently tend to be general. The judge narrows issues either at a special preliminary hearing or even at a plenary hearing before the full court. The final judgment describes the facts and the legal reasons on which it is based. Pleadings in modern civil-law systems therefore perform the task that common-law pleadings have only recently assumed—to inform the court and parties concerning their respective claims.

Appearance of defendant and plaintiff

      The summons or analogous document commands the defendant to respond to the complaint within a specified number of days after its service. In common-law systems, if a defendant fails to appear, he may suffer a “default” judgment. In civil-law systems the court will proceed to a plenary hearing if the defendant fails to appear.

      The time limits for the defendant's response vary from a few weeks to a few months, depending on the defendant's location, circumstances, and the means by which the process was served. In some countries that require either actual presence in courts or at least the delivery of documents to the court (e.g., Italy and Sweden), plaintiff and defendant may both be required to appear at the commencement of an action.

The preparatory stage

      After the pleading and appearance stage, both common-law and civil-law traditions involve a preparatory phase that uncovers and organizes evidence for use and trial and, increasingly, may serve to resolve actions without a trial.

      In Anglo-American procedure the preparatory phase serves several purposes. First, it may allow the court to make a decision on those cases that can be decided purely on legal grounds, without any regard to the facts in dispute. In these cases the party concerned will address a motion to the court that can be decided without waiting for a full trial. Examples include motions to dismiss for want of jurisdiction, motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim (historically called a demurrer), and motions for summary judgment (summary jurisdiction), in which the moving party demonstrates (sometimes through information produced at discovery) that one side lacks any evidence on some critical issue of fact. If granted, such a pretrial motion ends the lawsuit. Even if such pretrial adjudication is not possible, a judge at a pretrial hearing may attempt to narrow the issues in dispute and perhaps to settle (settlement) the case, thus making the trial unnecessary. If the pretrial phase does not end the lawsuit, it nonetheless will pave the way for trial through rulings on discovery requests and through more precise formulations of the disputed issues.

      The civil-law system has an analogous preparatory phase. Frequently, such questions as jurisdiction can be decided in the preliminary phase, without waiting for the full hearing. The preliminary phase may also serve to narrow issues and produce a settlement. Furthermore, proof may sometimes be received during the preliminary phases rather than at the main hearing, though in some systems the full court holds hearings devoted to all aspects of the case, without distinguishing between matters considered preliminary and those more pertinent to the main hearing.

discovery procedures

      The trial or main hearing examines and resolves the contested facts. Legal systems differ substantially, however, as to whether and how facts will come to light before trial. Civil-law systems have long relied on judicially guided investigation to uncover relevant facts. Historically, common-law systems relied, largely unsuccessfully, on notice pleadings and trial testimony for the same purpose. Because the parties lacked tools to compel their adversaries to disclose relevant information before trial, trials in common-law systems sometimes resulted in unexpected testimony and surprise revelations by witnesses. Anglo-American courts of equity, by contrast, heard no live testimony, relying instead on written summaries of testimony gathered out of court. The central legal reform of the 20th century in the United States combined these two common-law traditions, preserving the concentrated trial and its live testimony but giving to the parties the power to compel each other, and others unconnected with the lawsuit, to disclose relevant information in advance of trial.

      The goals of this development were straightforward: to allow more thorough preparation and presentation of cases; to encourage pretrial settlement by making each party cognizant of the true value of his claim; to expose, at an early stage in the proceedings, insubstantial claims that should not go to trial; and to reduce the element of surprise as a factor in civil litigation. Coupled with the move to notice pleading, discovery made the pretrial stage, rather than trial, the center of gravity in most civil litigation in common-law systems.

      In 1938, new U.S. federal rules dramatically established a model for the discovery process. During succeeding decades, the state courts, where most litigation occurs, followed suit, either adopting the federal rules as their procedural system or amending state legislation to permit broad pretrial discovery. Such regimes gave lawyers the power to require adversaries and other witnesses, in advance of trial, to disclose evidence on which they intended to rely, to respond to written or oral questions under oath, to produce documents and tangible objects (such as land, buildings, or machinery) for inspection, and to submit to physical or psychological examination when warranted. Most discovery devices may be utilized without prior court approval, and the procedures take place in lawyers' offices. Judicial intervention ordinarily occurs only when there is a dispute about discovery.

      Even in this broad-reaching regime of discovery, some limitations remain. Communications between a party and his attorney are protected by the attorney-client privilege. Materials and expert testimony prepared in anticipation of the pending litigation by or for a party are not discoverable unless the party seeking discovery shows a substantial need for the information and an inability to obtain substantially equivalent information by alternative means. Outside the United States, discovery is substantially more limited. In other common-law systems discovery is limited to documents that are admissible as evidence, and, unlike American discovery, often to documents that the opposing party can identify specifically. Civil-law systems rely on the judge to order the production of documents and witnesses as their relevance emerges from the series of hearings. As a result, with the exception of procedures to secure, in advance of lawsuit, evidence that is in danger of being lost (e.g., because a witness may die), there are few procedures in civil-law countries to enable a party to secure information to use later. Discovery of documents is usually possible only in very limited cases, though a party that actually intends to use a document has to make it available to the other side.

Pretrial conference

      The discovery process may make the parties aware of significant issues not previously considered or may make it clear that an issue considered important before discovery is no longer so. In order to provide a means for reflecting these changes and also to assist in simplifying the issues to be tried, shortening the time for trial, and possibly eliminating the need for trial completely, the court may direct the parties to appear before it for a pretrial conference. Pretrial conferences involve no testimony of witnesses heard and no formal adversary proceeding. The attorneys representing the litigants, and sometimes the parties themselves, with the assistance of the judge, try to reach agreement on amendments to the pleadings, the elimination of issues that are no longer deemed pertinent, and the crystallization of the real, controversial issues that must be determined at the trial. The pretrial conference also offers an indirect benefit: the possibility that the parties will settle without trial. Although some authorities feel that this should be a primary goal of the pretrial conference, the prevailing view is that “settlements must be a by-product rather than the object of pretrial, the primary aim being to improve the quality of the expected trial rather than to avoid it.”

      Civil-law systems need no separately demarcated pretrial conference, as they use one or more of the series of preparatory hearings for analogous purposes. Since preliminary hearings are ordinarily held before a single judge rather than a formal three-judge court, a considerable amount of judicial time can be saved. Under the French code of civil procedure, each case is assigned to a special “prehearing” judge, who sets time limits for the exchange of pleadings, decides how many pleadings after the original summons and complaint shall be used and when they shall be submitted, and may penalize dilatory parties by delivering a default judgment or, if both sides are dilatory, by striking the case off the calendar. Further, the judge may call in the parties' counsel for a conference and must make sure that all documents that the parties intend to use at the main hearing have been filed. The judge also may convene a conference of the parties to discuss a possible settlement. The court must, in short, either settle the case or put it in shape for the formal hearing. Under the 1976 reforms to the German Code of Civil Procedure, the parties may be directed, through a preliminary written or oral procedure, to prepare the main hearing in such a manner that it can lead to an immediate decision of the case.

The trial or main hearing

      The climactic and decisive part of an Anglo-American civil action is the trial, in which the parties present their proof in a concentrated fashion to a single judge and sometimes to a jury. The climactic event in a lawsuit based on European codes is the hearing before the full court, which may occur in several widely separated segments.

The common-law trial: judge and jury

      If the suit has ended during the pretrial stage, the parties must prepare for trial, which in the United States may be held with a jury. At the trial the parties present evidence in an uninterrupted fashion, without any possibility for additional proof after its close. In common-law systems many of the procedural rules reflect the division of responsibilities between judge and jury: the jury determines the facts of the case; the judge determines the applicable law and oversees the parties' presentation of the facts to the jury. These procedural rules designed to accommodate jury trials remain largely intact, even though, in common-law systems other than that of the United States, in almost all cases the judge will determine both the facts and the law.

The order of trial

      A common-law trial typically begins with the attorneys for the plaintiff and the defendant making opening statements, outlining what each conceives to be the nature of the case and what each hopes to prove as the trial proceeds. Presentation of the plaintiff's case follows. The plaintiff's lawyer introduces documents and calls and questions witnesses, whom the attorney for the defense then cross-examines. When the plaintiff's attorney has concluded his presentation, the defendant's attorney frequently will ask for a dismissal of the suit, claiming that the plaintiff has failed to establish a prima facie case (i.e., a case sufficient until contradicted by evidence). If that motion fails, the defendant will call and examine witnesses in order to establish his defenses, and these witnesses are subject to cross-examination by the plaintiff's attorney. The attorneys for each side then make a closing argument, marshaling the evidence presented in a light most favourable to their respective clients.

      When the case is tried before a jury, the judge will instruct the jury on the applicable law, and the jury will deliberate in private until it reaches a verdict, which will then be announced in open court. In cases without a jury, upon completion of the closing arguments, the judge may render a decision immediately or may take the case under submission for a later decision.

Rules of evidence

      The parties, and not the judge, have the primary obligation to call and question the witnesses, but they must do so in accord with the law of evidence. When one party objects to the introduction of any evidence, the judge acts as arbiter, deciding whether and under what conditions the evidence may be admitted. The party objecting to the evidence must state the grounds for the objection, and the judge must permit the evidence unless the specified grounds given by the attorney apply.

Directed verdicts

      When the party having the burden of proof of an issue has completed its presentation, the opposing side may ask the court to rule as a matter of law that the evidence presented does not provide sufficient proof for the party who presented the evidence. If the judge agrees that sufficient proof is lacking in a case tried by a jury, he may “direct a verdict” (sometimes called “granting judgment as a matter of law”), which in effect removes the case from the jury. If used properly, such a verdict does not violate the constitutional right to a jury trial because a verdict is directed only when there has not been sufficient evidence introduced to create a material issue of disputed fact for the jury to decide. The granting of a directed verdict results in a final judgment and the termination of the trial.

Instructions to the jury

      At the conclusion of the trial, the judge must instruct the jury as to the applicable law governing the case in order to guide it in arriving at a just verdict. In practice the parties will propose instructions for the judge's consideration. The judge then selects from among the proposals that have been submitted and offers the parties the opportunity, without the jury present, to object to any proposed instruction that they deem to be incorrect. As with the introduction of evidence, failure to object generally precludes a party from arguing later—on appeal or in a motion for a new trial—that the instructions given were incorrect.

Types of verdict

      In almost all cases the judge will instruct the jury to return a general verdict—that is, a decision merely stating the ultimate conclusion that it has reached (e.g., the award of X dollars to the plaintiff or a verdict that the plaintiff recover nothing). This form of verdict gives considerable leeway to the jury and permits, if it does not encourage, some deviation from a strictly logical and technical application of the law. An alternative that offers greater control over the decision-making process is the special verdict, which requires the jury to answer a series of specific factual questions proposed by the judge, who will then himself determine the proper conclusion, based upon the jury's responses to the questions asked. Because of the difficulty in drawing up questions that cover completely the issues of the case, the special verdict is cumbersome and not frequently used.

New trial and other relief

      After the completion of a trial, either party may request the trial judge to vacate the verdict and grant a new trial. Various grounds are available for requesting a new trial, including judicial error, excessiveness of the verdict, and misconduct by jury or counsel. The judge has considerable discretion in ruling on such a motion—a decision to grant a new trial is seldom overturned on appeal. The grant of a new trial, unlike the directed verdict, does not result in the judge substituting his opinion for that of the jury but only mandates that another jury hear the case at another trial. In the limited circumstances in which a judge may grant a directed verdict, he can also substitute his decision for that of the jury by a judgment not on the verdict.

The civil-law main hearing

      If a civil-law case has not ended as a result of the preparatory hearings, it culminates in a main hearing, sometimes held before a multijudge court. Like the common-law system, the main hearing involves a comprehensive inquiry into and judicial ruling on the parties' remaining factual and legal disagreements. Unlike in the common-law system, such a hearing need not involve any testimony by witnesses and may be held over several sessions separated by substantial intervals. At the main hearing, counsel for both sides present their arguments as to the law and the facts of the case and submit documentary evidence that has not previously been presented. The hearing serves several purposes: it more fully informs the court of the legal and factual contentions of the parties; it narrows the issues that may have been raised by the original pleadings; and it is the basis of the court's judgment. The extent of proof presentation and the narrowing of issues vary from country to country.

      In countries such as Italy and France, which divide the lawsuit into a preparatory and a final stage, the judge in charge of the preparatory proceedings attempts to narrow the issues and may, for this purpose, examine the evidence. In countries where there is only one stage, this winnowing process takes place during the full hearing. In most civil-law countries, evidence other than documentary evidence may be introduced only pursuant to a specific court order detailing the matter on which such evidence is to be received and the form that such evidence is to take (witnesses, experts, etc.).

Types of proof proceedings

      Various types of proof proceedings are generally available in civil-law systems, including (1) hearing of witnesses, (2) reports by experts, and (3) the examination of parties, either informally or pursuant to formal interrogatories.

      A party wishing that a witness be heard must make an appropriate request. To prepare its opposition, the requesting party must inform the other side of the name of the witness and the subject on which the witness is to be heard. Civil-law systems differ among themselves concerning the extent to which counsel, as opposed to the judge, will conduct examination of witnesses. Japan, for example, often permits lawyers to question witnesses directly; many European systems limit counsel to suggesting questions that the judge might ask. A more or less extensive summary of the testimony is prepared immediately by a clerk under the direction of the judge and is signed by the witness, the judge, and the clerk. For witnesses who live far away from the proceedings, interrogation sometimes takes place in their local court. Examination of an expert is obtained in the same manner as that of a witness. Although the parties may suggest an expert to the court, experts ordinarily are taken from a list approved by the court. The expert is considered an impartial auxiliary of the court; use of an expert is ordinarily limited to cases involving some technical or scientific problem. The court or judge issuing the proof order may authorize the expert to make and report on certain scientific investigations (e.g., in an automobile accident case, to examine the car involved).

      Parties are not considered witnesses in some civil-law systems, on the grounds that a party's testimony in his own favour is likely to be discounted and that it is on the other hand harsh to ask him to testify against himself. Even in such regimes, however, the court usually is authorized informally to question parties, ordinarily not under oath, either on the court's own motion or on the request of a party. Other civil-law systems—those of Austria and Japan, for example—permit parties to testify under oath.

Rules of evidence

      In one respect, civil-law systems use rules of evidence that are quite simple and liberal in comparison with those employed in common-law systems. Evidence need only relate directly to the facts at issue and be neither superfluous nor unduly repetitious. In other respects, civil-law principles of proof seem more restrictive: as noted, some systems are reluctant to force parties to testify, and the power of the judge to order production of documents is often narrower than in the United States.

judgment and execution

Drafting the judgment

      When proceedings end, the court that has considered the case will render what is called a final judgment. Judgments deciding some procedural matter or intermediate substantive issue but not terminating the proceedings are termed interlocutory (interlocutory decree) judgments. The forms of such judgments differ substantially between and within the world's legal systems.

      In American practice the judgment of a court after a jury trial is presented in a stylized document that merely recites identifying data, such as the names of the parties, the fact that a jury verdict has been rendered, and the disposition to be made. No detailed grounds are given for the decision. In nonjury trials, judges usually must write a document (or accept one presented by the parties) setting forth the factual and legal bases for the decision in order to facilitate appellate review.

      Judgments in civil-law countries quite generally consist of identifying data, the decision, and a detailed explanation of the decision. The opinion may vary in style. In Germany and Austria it is narrative in nature; in France it is traditionally cast in the form of one long sentence consisting of a syllogism using the facts and the applicable law as premises.

Effects of the judgment

      Judgments generally have a continuing effect on parties and sometimes others after they are rendered. In some situations the doctrine of res judicata (also called claim preclusion) forbids the parties to challenge or reopen the case after the verdict has been rendered and all appeals have been exhausted. This doctrine aims at avoiding repetitive litigation and, to a lesser extent, at preventing successive courts from issuing conflicting judgments. Thus, it is uniformly held in the United States that, when a valid and final personal judgment in an action for the recovery of money is rendered in favour of the plaintiff, the plaintiff or his legal successors are prevented from instituting a second action against the defendant on the same claim. The doctrine of res judicata does not, however, preclude a second lawsuit based on a different claim.

      The related doctrine of collateral estoppel (also called issue preclusion) precludes the parties from relitigating, in a second suit based on a different claim, any issue of fact common to both suits that was actually litigated and necessarily determined in the first suit. At the start of the 20th century, the doctrine of collateral estoppel or issue preclusion was limited to successive lawsuits involving the same parties. For example, A, as the driver of B's truck, is involved in an accident with a car driven by C. If A sues C and recovers a judgment because of the negligence of C, the older rule was that, in a subsequent suit filed by B against C for damage to the truck, C is not precluded from claiming that he was not negligent, since B was not a party to the first suit and would not be bound by the decision in it. Most U.S. courts now hold that, even though the same parties are not involved, when the issues are the same and when the defendant has had adequate opportunity and incentive to litigate an issue in the first case, the defendant will be bound in subsequent litigation. This rule of extended preclusion is not recognized in most other common-law countries.

      Civil-law systems also follow the principle of res judicata, though a somewhat narrower one. Substantively, res judicata applies generally only in new proceedings between the same parties (or their heirs or successors in interest) that involve the same type of action (the same bases for the action and the same demand for relief).

      In all legal systems, res judicata becomes procedurally operative only after all normal means of review have been exhausted or the time limit to use them has lapsed.

Enforcement of the judgment

      All countries have enforcement procedures that are intended to require the losing party to comply with the judgment of a court. Systems differ substantially in two respects: the practical administrative enforcement of judgments (Will an official of the state seize the loser's property or otherwise enforce the judgment?) and the formal rules that guide and limit such enforcement (Is some property exempt from judgment; how long a time must elapse before enforcement may occur?). Reliable evidence on the first point is scarce, but experienced practitioners suggest that it is, in general, easier to enforce a money judgment against a viable business concern than against an uninsured individual.

      Formal rules regarding enforcement vary greatly, and they are usually highly technical. In the United States a party who obtains a monetary judgment may normally avail himself at once of the procedural devices designed to enforce the judgment. By contrast, in many civil-law systems judgments cannot be enforced until all appeals have been heard or until the time for such appeals has run out. Each system recognizes exceptions to its general principle: losers in common-law jurisdictions may request a stay pending appeal, and winners in civil-law systems may request preappeal enforcement.

      When the judgment results in an order to the losing party to do or refrain from doing some act, a common-law court has the power to enforce the judgment by punishing, with a fine or a jail sentence, a party who fails to comply, on the grounds that his disobedience constitutes “ contempt of court.” Some, but not all, civil-law systems grant courts similar powers; others—as, for example, Japan—do not, requiring the resort to indirect means of enforcing nonmonetary judgments (e.g., seizure of property).

      When the judgment results in an award of monetary damages, the usual procedures for enforcement are the “levy of execution” on property (real and personal property) belonging to the defendant or an execution against his income. All property that is not exempt by a specific statute, as well as income earned and debts owed by third persons, is subject to this enforcement process. An official generally seizes nonexempt property and sells it at a public auction, with any excess proceeds returned to the defendant. Exemptions differ widely among legal regimes in their relative generosity to the judgment debtor, as the loser of a lawsuit is sometimes called. Some exempt only modest necessities (e.g., wearing apparel, tools and implements used in earning a living, household furniture); others include homes up to a certain value, motor vehicles, and other assets. The successful plaintiff may also seize some portion of the future earnings of the defendant. Such seizures, called garnishment, are limited in order to allow the wage earner to survive while he is satisfying the judgment. As with property, the portion of wages exempt from garnishment varies with the regime.

Costs and disbursements

      Bringing a civil lawsuit sometimes costs a great deal; most of the cost will consist of lawyers' fees. All systems permit the recovery of some costs; they differ in whether those costs include lawyers' fees. If attorneys' fees are recoverable, a plaintiff will be made whole, recovering not only damages but also the costs of suit. On the other hand, in such a system parties with less than sure claims may hesitate to bring suit—for fear they may both lose and be liable for their adversaries' costs. If the winner cannot recover fees and costs, he will to that extent suffer an uncompensated loss; on the other hand, in such a regime parties with meritorious but less than certain claims may hesitate less to prosecute them. In the United States, the general rule is that the prevailing party does not recover lawyers' fees, but over the past three decades many statutes have granted such fees to prevailing plaintiffs in cases involving various claims thought to involve the public interest. Outside the United States, the prevailing party generally recovers legal fees, but the victor's recovery is often limited to a “reasonable” fee—which may not cover the entire amount actually paid by the victor.

Appeals (appeal) and other methods of review

      Immediately after judgment is granted, the losing party may ask the court of first instance to reconsider, giving it a chance to correct its own errors. In Anglo-American courts this procedure is known as a motion for a new trial. In some cases (e.g., if there is newly discovered evidence), procedures analogous to motions for a new trial exist in European countries. If such a move fails, all legal systems permit a losing party to appeal the adverse judgment to another court. They differ as to which judgments may be appealed and how deeply the appellate court will scrutinize whichever judgments are appealed.

      In general, appellate courts in civil-law systems exercise broad supervisory authority over lower court rulings. Appeals to intermediate appellate courts from courts of first instance are available quite broadly in civil-law systems, frequently for all judgments exceeding a certain amount and at times for certain types of judgments regardless of the amount. Because the appeal involves a new hearing of the case, the procedure resembles that used by courts of first instance, though entirely new claims may not be presented. In the case of a review of a nonfinal judgment, the appellate court frequently limits its review to an examination of the legal correctness of that judgment and then remands the case, so that proceedings in the court below may be completed. Appeals to the supreme courts of the civil-law countries generally are limited to questions of law. The facts are not ordinarily reexamined, and no new evidence may be introduced. In several countries (e.g., France and Italy), the arguments by the parties may be augmented by an officer representing the Ministry of Justice. If a court reverses a lower court ruling, it generally does not substitute its own judgment for the erroneous judgment below but merely annuls the erroneous judgment and remands the case for new proceedings, frequently to a court different from that from which the case came. Review by supreme courts usually can be sought for all final (and sometimes even nonfinal) decisions of intermediate appellate courts

      By contrast with civil-law regimes, common-law appellate courts reverse only if a harmful error (one deemed likely to have affected the judgment) has occurred, and even then only if the appealing party complained about that error to the trial court at the time of its ruling. Common-law appellate courts review errors of law as well as fact but may reverse only if convinced that the lower court's finding of law was erroneous or a finding of fact (whether by judge or jury) was clearly erroneous. Even then the appellate court will still affirm if the trial court reached the correct result. This preference for affirmation is reinforced by the rule that appellate courts in common-law systems consider only the record and transcript of evidence in the trial court and receive no new evidence. Combined with the general rule that only final judgments may be appealed, these rules make it typically more difficult for a losing party to secure appellate reversal in common-law regimes. Most common-law jurisdictions provide a second appellate court to which a party may appeal from an adverse decision of the first appellate court. The right to such a second appeal generally is limited to certain types of cases raising particularly important issues, and only a small percentage of litigants are permitted to pursue a second appeal. In the U.S. Supreme Court, a petition to authorize an appeal is known as a petition for a writ of certiorari.

      Appellate courts universally are constituted of several judges. It is frequent practice in Anglo-American countries for judges who disagree with the decision of the majority of the hearing panel to prepare and file dissenting or separate concurring opinions, in which they explain the reasons for their disagreements. In civil-law countries, such dissenting opinions are rarely allowed; indeed, the courts are generally forbidden to disclose the position taken by an individual member.

Stephen C. Yeazell Geoffrey Hazard, Jr.

Criminal procedure

      The law of criminal procedure regulates the modes of apprehending, charging, and trying suspected offenders; the imposition of penalties on convicted offenders; and the methods of challenging the legality of conviction after judgment is entered. Litigation in this area frequently deals with conflicts of fundamental importance for the allocation of power between the state and its citizens.

Procedure before trial

The investigatory phase

      When a criminal offense has been reported, the competent authority (the police, the public prosecutor, or the investigating magistrate) commences the criminal process by investigating the circumstances. In this phase, relevant evidence is collected and preserved for a possible trial. The suspect also has the right to collect evidence in his favour. In the civil-law countries of continental Europe, he can typically request the investigating authority to assist him in this endeavour; in common-law countries, the suspect is expected to take the initiative in preparing the case for his defense.

The role of the police

      The police play a primary role in the investigation. They are responsible for interrogating suspects and witnesses, and they carry out arrests, searches, and seizures. In Anglo-American legal systems the police perform investigations on their own authority, whereas on the Continent they act under the formal supervision of public prosecutors or investigating magistrates.

The role of the magistrate (magistrates' court)

      In some countries, such as France and Italy, a magistrate conducts the investigation in cases of serious criminal offense, personally hearing witnesses and directing police to perform such relevant acts as the seizure of evidence.

      In many other jurisdictions, as in the United States and Germany, magistrates do not organize or conduct the investigation. Their role is limited to authorizing particular acts of investigation involving serious invasions of civil rights—most important, instances of arrest, pretrial detention, search, seizure, and surveillance of mail and telecommunication. Generally, such acts are lawful only upon prior written judicial authorization (the warrant). Under U.S. law, warrants are issued only upon probable cause—that is, when there is evidence leading to a reasonable belief that the person to be arrested has committed a crime or that an object connected with criminal activity can be found at the place to be searched. Other legal systems employ less-stringent standards of suspicion.

      When it is necessary for police to act on the spot—for example, because the suspect is about to escape or because he will destroy the contraband sought—they can take the proper measures without prior judicial authorization. In most cases, such provisional measures can or must be submitted later to judicial control.

The role of the prosecutor

      Public prosecutors are lawyers appointed by the government as its representatives in criminal matters. In the United States, most state or county prosecutors are elected.

      In some legal systems, as in Germany, the prosecutor is formally responsible for conducting criminal investigations. In practice, however, his role is generally limited to advising and supervising police. Only in very serious or politically sensitive matters does he personally conduct the investigation.

The role of the suspect

      Since the 19th century, the law has gradually recognized the suspect's autonomous position as a subject of the criminal process. His right to remain silent in order to avoid incriminating himself has, in principle, been acknowledged universally. However, few legal systems go so far as the United States, where, under the Miranda v. Arizona ruling of 1966, the defendant's statements will be excluded from evidence if he is not specifically warned of his right to remain silent before interrogation while in police custody. In most countries, evidence of a confession is admissible in court unless the confession is shown to have been “involuntary”—for example, acquired by torture or threats.

      On the other hand, the defendant has a universally recognized right to present to the court his view of the facts. In many jurisdictions, this right can be exercised even before the court decides whether there is sufficient evidence to hold a trial.

The role of defense counsel

      The defense lawyer has a double function in the investigation phase of the criminal process: to assist the suspect in gathering exonerating evidence and to protect him from violations of his rights at the hands of law-enforcement personnel. All legal systems grant the suspect the right to the assistance of an attorney, and in many countries the suspect must be informed of this right before police interrogate him. If the suspect does not have the means to hire a lawyer, often the state will pay the attorney's fee or provide the suspect with state-employed counsel.

      However, the law also restricts defense counsel's ability to carry out his functions. In some jurisdictions, as in France, the attorney has no right to be present when the suspect or a witness is interrogated by the police; only a few countries, such as the United States, grant the defense the right to compel witnesses on its behalf to appear in court. Moreover, in most jurisdictions the defense has no or only limited access to information gathered by the prosecution before the case reaches the court.

Pretrial detention

      Incarceration of the suspect before trial most seriously impairs the preparation of an effective defense. Nevertheless, all legal systems permit pretrial detention, though under differing conditions.

      In Anglo-American jurisdictions the rule is that suspects arrested and not released immediately for want of cause are held in custody. However, the suspect generally has a right to be released on a financial surety, or bail, the amount of which is set by the magistrate according to the individual circumstances of the case. The purpose of bail is to ensure appearance of the suspect at the trial; hence, it will be forfeited if the suspect absconds. In appropriate cases the suspect can be released on his own recognizance (i.e., without providing bail). Only under special circumstances—for example, when it is thought that the suspect might commit further offenses if released—can bail be denied altogether.

      In continental Europe the law treats pretrial detention as the exception rather than the rule. The magistrate can remand the suspect to custody before trial only if this is necessary to prevent him from escaping, tampering with evidence, or committing further serious offenses. Even on the Continent, the law authorizes the court to release a suspect from custody if sufficient surety is posted.

The decision to prosecute

      A formal accusation (indictment) is universally regarded as an indispensable prerequisite for a criminal trial. It is typically the public prosecutor who, on the basis of the results of the investigation, determines whether to file a complaint and for which offense to bring charges.

Private prosecution

      Private citizens, such as the victim of the offense, are not generally permitted to institute a criminal action, though the law on this point differs among jurisdictions. In the United States private criminal complaints are practically impossible. In England anyone can institute criminal proceedings for most offenses, but the director of public prosecutions can take over and discontinue prosecution at any time. In Germany citizens can prosecute only for certain minor offenses such as libel and assault. In France victims of crime can combine criminal prosecution with civil claims for damages.

      In many countries victims can prevent prosecution for certain offenses—e.g., assault, libel, and some sexual offenses—by not filing a special request for public prosecution.

grand jury

      In the federal system of the United States, and in about half of the state systems, charges are brought not by the public prosecutor but by the grand jury, a group of 12 to 23 citizens selected by lot. The grand jury also has investigative authority, and it is to serve as a protective shield against unwarranted prosecution. In practice, however, grand juries are usually dominated by the public prosecutors, who are responsible for presenting the evidence to them.

Prosecutorial discretion

      In all legal systems the prosecutor should bring an accusation only if he thinks that the available evidence, discounted by probable defense evidence, is so strong that the defendant is likely to be convicted after trial. In some countries, such as Italy, the prosecutor is required by law to bring charges whenever there is sufficient evidence for conviction. In other jurisdictions—for example, in the United States, France, and Japan—the public prosecutor has discretion as to whether to file a formal accusation; in effect, this means that he can informally grant clemency to an offender who would certainly be convicted in court. In still other countries, such as Germany, prosecutorial discretion applies only to minor offenses, whereas prosecution of serious crimes is mandatory. To the extent the prosecutor has discretion, he can make the decision not to prosecute dependent upon certain conditions—e.g., that the offender pay restitution to the victim.

Plea bargaining

      In some countries, such as the United States and Spain, the prosecutor's discretion extends to determining the crime with which the defendant is to be charged. Hence, in a case of armed robbery, the U.S. prosecutor may charge the suspect with armed robbery, simple robbery, assault, simple theft, or any combination of these offenses. All of these offenses carry quite different penalties, and normally the prosecutor charges the most serious offense that can be sustained by the evidence. However, since the cooperation of the defendant, especially in offering a plea of guilty, drastically shortens or simplifies the trial, prosecutors in some countries reduce charges on the condition that the defendant not contest the accusation in court. Especially in the United States, this creates a system of “plea bargaining,” in which defense attorneys negotiate with prosecutors the charges (and resulting penalties) most acceptable to their clients. Similar transactions, though sometimes performed discreetly because of their dubious legality, occur in many other jurisdictions.

Trial procedure

Criminal courts

      In most countries, two or three types of courts have jurisdiction in criminal matters. Petty offenses are usually dealt with by one professional judge; in England, however, two or more lay justices may sit in Magistrates' Court. Matters of greater importance are, in many countries, tried by panels of two or more judges. Often such panels consist of lawyers and lay judges, as in Germany, where two laypersons sit with one to three jurists. The French cour d'assises, which hears serious criminal matters, is composed of three professional judges and nine lay assessors. Such “mixed courts” of professionals and ordinary citizens deliberate together and decide by majority vote, with lawyers and laypersons having one vote each.

      By contrast, the jury system, a distinctive feature of the Anglo-American criminal process, involves a division of functions between the presiding judge and the laypersons sitting as jurors. The judge presides over the trial, determines the admissibility of evidence, and instructs the jury on the applicable law, but he does not participate in the deliberations of the jury. The jurors usually remain silent during trial but are autonomous in finding the verdict of guilty or not guilty.

      The U.S. Constitution guarantees every defendant in a nonpetty case the right to be tried before a jury; the defendant can also waive this right and have a professional judge sitting alone decide on the verdict. To ensure the impartiality of the jury, prosecution and defense can reject (in legal parlance, challenge) jurors whom they establish to be biased. Moreover, the defense (and in the United States the prosecution as well) has the right of peremptory challenge, in which it can challenge a number of jurors without having to give a reason.

Pretrial matters

      In many legal systems, the court checks the accuracy of the accusation before admitting the case for trial. In France a special panel called the chambre d'accusation determines whether there is enough evidence for the case to proceed; in England the Magistrate's Court makes the decision on “binding over” the defendant for trial; and in Germany the trial court itself (sitting without lay assessors) decides whether there is sufficient evidence. In the Anglo-American system, the court holds a hearing to determine “probable cause” for trial; under continental law, courts usually make that determination on the basis of the documents assembled in the course of the investigation.

      A characteristic feature of the Anglo-American criminal process is the opportunity for defendants to plead guilty or not guilty. Only if the defendant contests the accusation by pleading not guilty is a trial held. Otherwise, the court pronounces the defendant guilty as charged and goes on to determine the penalty. With few exceptions (as in Spain), continental law does not provide for such shortcuts to sentencing. Rather, a trial must be held even if the defendant has confessed guilt from the outset.

Publicity of the trial

      Trials, as opposed to pretrial investigation, must be accessible to the public. This principle, embodied in the constitutions of several countries, is meant to protect the defendant; in the United States it is also based on the freedom of the press. Publicity does not mean that broadcasting of trials must be permitted; in most countries, it is not allowed.

      In spectacular cases, great publicity can influence the court and work to the detriment of defendants. Most legal systems, therefore, permit the court to exclude the public from the trial (or from parts thereof) or to change the location in which the trial is to be held if either measure is necessary to protect the trial process from undue interference.

Presentation of evidence

      In Anglo-American law the presentation of evidence is left to the parties. Witnesses are examined and cross-examined by counsel, not by the court. The function of the trial judge is to enforce the rules governing evidence and to ask supplementary questions if he feels that the parties have failed to clarify the facts. The defendant may testify as a witness if he chooses to, but he is not examined by the judge. Under continental law, by contrast, the presiding judge typically dominates the process of taking evidence. He is responsible for establishing the relevant facts by calling and questioning witnesses and for introducing real evidence. The judge also interrogates the defendant unless the latter chooses to remain silent. Attorneys for the prosecution and the defense ask additional questions of witnesses and summarize the evidence at the end of the trial.

Finding the verdict

      A basic principle of both Anglo-American and continental procedures is that the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until his guilt has been established beyond a reasonable doubt. The burden of proof, therefore, rests upon the prosecution. On the Continent, this is true even in cases involving insanity, drunkenness, self-defense, or necessity. Anglo-American law regards these as “affirmative defenses” and requires the defendant to provide at least some evidence that they were a factor.

      Courts in continental legal systems are not bound by any legal rules concerning the evaluation of evidence presented; rather, they are to follow their conscience in establishing guilt or innocence. The same is generally true for juries in the Anglo-American system; however, since juries are thought to be easily distracted from the real issues of the case, there is a complicated set of legal rules determining what evidence can be presented to juries.

      In the United States, jury verdicts must be unanimous; if the jury is unable to agree, a new trial before another jury can be held. In England, majority votes by margins of 10 to 2 or 9 to 1 are acceptable after the jury has deliberated for at least two hours. As a corollary of the presumption of innocence, many continental systems require a specified majority of the judges to vote for a finding of guilty.

Sentencing (sentence)

      In continental systems, the court decides, on the basis of a single comprehensive trial, both on the guilt or innocence of the defendant and on the penalty if he is found guilty. Sentences are conclusively determined by the court, with prison terms being subject to conditional release.

      Anglo-American law provides for separate sentencing hearings, which typically take place a few weeks after the defendant has been found guilty of the charges. In the interim, social workers gather information on the offender's psychological and social background, which they present to the court. Usually, a single professional judge determines the sentence after hearing the defense (and, in the United States, the prosecution). In the United States, juries in several states make a recommendation with respect to capital punishment in cases where the death penalty is available as a sentence.

Postconviction procedure

Common law

      In Anglo-American legal systems, a convicted defendant may move in the trial court to arrest judgment, or he may file a motion for a new trial. The legality of the conviction may also be challenged by appeal to a higher court. Criminal appeals were unknown in the traditional common law, but today they are universally granted by statute. In the United Kingdom, the Criminal Appeal Act of 1907 established an elaborate system of appellate procedure, proceeding from Magistrate's Courts all the way to the House of Lords, the supreme court of England. Extraordinary remedies available in English procedure include the writ of habeas corpus (determining the legality of holding the prisoner in custody) and the orders of mandamus (compelling an official to perform an act required by law), certiorari (requiring a lower court to present the trial record to a higher court), and prohibition (by which a higher court prohibits a lower court from exceeding its jurisdiction).

      In the United States, a defendant convicted in a state or federal court can appeal to that state's (or the appropriate federal) appellate court. Subject to certain restrictions, the defendant can turn to the federal court system when his rights under the U.S. Constitution have been violated in state court. Review by the U.S. Supreme Court is discretionary; the court grants it only in cases of general significance by issuing a writ of certiorari to the court whose judgment is to be reviewed. Even after the regular avenues of appeal are exhausted, defendants in custody can at any time apply for a writ of habeas corpus, challenging the prison warden's right to keep the petitioner in custody and demanding his release. Since the warden's right usually depends on the validity of the criminal judgment, habeas corpus constitutes an indirect method of review. Legislation in the 1970s curtailed access to federal courts on the basis of habeas corpus.

      While defendants enjoy a liberal right to appellate review in criminal matters, the prosecution generally cannot appeal an acquittal. This is due to a strict interpretation of the concept of double jeopardy, which forbids that a defendant be tried twice for the same act.

      Appellate courts do not take evidence but only decide points of law on the basis of the record. Since juries do not give reasons for their verdicts, appeals are usually based on allegations of faulty procedure (in particular, the admission and exclusion of evidence) and on erroneous statements on the applicable law in the judge's instruction to the jury. The sentence is also subject to review in Britain and Canada but not in most of the United States.

Civil law

      Appellate procedure on the Continent follows quite different rules. Most important, the prosecution as well as the defense can appeal a judgment, including the sentence. In some countries (e.g., Germany) it is possible to demand a new trial in a higher court if the original trial was held by a single judge. In other cases, appellate courts review only matters of substantive or procedural law, including the question of whether the lower court did everything necessary to find the relevant facts. Continental trial courts usually write elaborate reasons for their judgments, and it is these reasons that form the objects of the appellate courts' scrutiny.

      When appellate review is waived or exhausted, judgments are deemed final and can be executed. Final judgments can be overturned only if significant new evidence is found indicating that the decision was wrong.

Hans-Heinrich Jescheck Thomas Weigend

Additional Reading

Historical growth of procedural law

The history of procedural law is discussed in Leopold Wenger, Institutes of the Roman Law of Civil Procedure, rev. ed. (1940, reprinted 1986), the classic on the topic; Ernest Metzger, A New Outline of the Roman Civil Law (1997), with reevaluations based on recent evidence; John P. Dawson, A History of Lay Judges (1960), in disagreement with some of Wenger's conclusions, although not limited to Roman law, and The Oracles of the Law (1968, reprinted 1986), a complementary work on the history of professional judges; Arthur Engelmann et al., A History of Continental Civil Procedure (1927, reprinted 1968; originally published in German, 1901), the classic text in English; Frederick Pollock and Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, 2nd ed. (1899), an elegantly written treatment of the early period in England; Robert W. Millar, Civil Procedure of the Trial Court in Historical Perspective (1952), which discusses the history of Anglo-American trial procedure; and J.H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed. (2002), a good one-volume general treatment of English legal history.

Civil procedure

Mirjan R. Damaška, The Faces of Justice and State Authority: A Comparative Approach to the Legal Process (1986), is a broad examination of principles of the world's procedural systems, both contemporary and historical; Mauro Cappelletti (ed.), Civil Procedure, vol. 16 of International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (1973– ), issued in fascicles, is a scholarly discussion of all aspects of civil procedure by contributors from many countries; Charles E. Clark, Procedure: The Handmaid of Justice (1965), is a collection of significant essays.

Elements of civil procedure

Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr. and Michele Tarufo, American Civil Procedure: An Introduction (1993), is a narrative overview for a nonprofessional audience; Fleming James, Jr., Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., and John Leubsdorf, Civil Procedure, 5th ed. (2001), is a discussion in some depth oriented primarily to law students and professionals; Stephen C. Yeazell, Civil Procedure, 6th ed. (2004), is a casebook for students; Joseph H. Koffler and Alison Reppy, Handbook of Common Law Pleading (1969), is a discussion of earlier procedure; Robert M. Cover and Owen M. Fiss (eds.), The Structure of Procedure (1979; reprinted 1992), is a collection of essays.Civil procedure in countries other than the United States is treated in John Langbein, The German Advantage in Civil Procedure, University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 52, p. 823 (1985), offering a provocative comparison of one civil-law system with that of the United States; M. Cappelletti and Joseph M. Perillo, Civil Procedure in Italy (1965), one of the best available treatments in English; Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anders Bruzelius, Civil Procedure in Sweden (1965), an indispensable work; Takaaki Hattori and Dan Fenno Henderson, Civil Procedure in Japan, 2nd ed. (2000), a valuable discussion of modern procedure, published in loose-leaf format; Simon Golding, Odgers on Civil Court Actions, 24th rev. ed. (1996), a standard work on England's civil procedure; J.A. Jolowicz, On Civil Procedure (2000), consisting of essays, most on English procedure but some on comparative procedure, by a leading scholar.Treatments of special topics in civil procedure include the classic work M. Cappelletti, Procédure orale et procédure écrite: Oral and Written Procedure in Civil Litigation (1971), a comparative study based on reports from several countries, with a summary in English; Mirjan J. Damaška, Evidence Law Adrift (1997), a comparative treatment of evidence in civil- and common-law systems; Ellen Sward, The Decline of the Civil Jury (2001); and Robert C. Casad and William B. Richman, Jurisdiction in Civil Actions, 3rd ed. (1998), an introduction to problems of effect of judgments.Stuart C. Yudofsky

Criminal procedure

Texts on English criminal procedural law and practice include John Frederick Archbold, Pleading, Evidence, and Practice in Criminal Cases, 42nd ed., edited by Stephen Mitchell and P.J. Richardson (1985); and Celia Hampton, Criminal Procedure, 3rd ed. (1982), an introductory text. Criminal procedure in the United States is detailed in Francis Wharton, Wharton's Criminal Procedure, 12th ed. by Charles E. Torcia, 4 vol. (1974–76), with annual cumulative supplements; Wayne R. Lafave and Jerold H. Israel, Criminal Procedure, 3 vol. (1984), a standard textbook; Joseph G. Cook, Constitutional Rights of the Accused, 2nd ed., 3 vol. (1985–86), a treatise on procedural law under the U.S. Constitution; and James E. Bond, Plea Bargaining and Guilty Pleas, 2nd ed. (1983), published in loose-leaf format. Texts on the law of criminal procedure in other countries include, for France, Jean Pradel, Procédure pénale, 4th ed. rev. and enl. (1987); for Italy, Gian Domenico Pisapia, Compendio di procedura penale, 3rd ed. (1982); and for Germany, John H. Langbein, Comparative Criminal Procedure: Germany (1977); and Claus Roxin, Strafverfahrensrecht, 20th rev. ed. (1987).Hans-Heinrich Jescheck Thomas Weigend

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