Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
This essay is part of my Finnish criminal court series. See the introductory essay for more information and an overview of the Finnish criminal court system.
The main hearing is the only part of the trial which directly affects the court's decision. It is immediate and oral and usually lasts no longer than a couple of hours.
The current system is fairly young. There were several fairly substantial reforms of Finnish court procedure in the 1990's. I will discuss this history in a later essay.
The parties involved in a main hearing are the prosecutor, the defendant, and the people and companies who suffered loss, injury or other harm from the alleged crime (I'll call these latter people and companies collectively the injured parties). Additionally, the court in session consists of one or two legally trained judges, one of which presides, and three or four lay judges. They all sit behind the bench along with the court reporter and sometimes additional court clerks. I'll use the male pronoun of them all, but it should be understood that any and all of them could be female.
The courtroom layout differs from that which we are all familiar from US-based trial stories. The following picture models the Jyväskylä courthouse courtroom 3, where I have often sat as a lay judge. The basic layout has some small variations among the courtrooms.
When a main hearing starts, all the judges, the court reporter and a clerk, if any, are sitting in their seats, as is the prosecutor. The presiding judge uses the intercom to announce the hearing to the public lobby and calls for all the parties and witnesses for the case to enter the room. He verifies that all those who are needed are present, and then instructs the parties to sit down and the witnesses to return to the lobby to wait. In certain very simple and not very serious cases, nobody bessides the prosecutor is required, but usually the defendant must be present, as well as those of the injured parties who have been named as witnesses, and any additional witnesses. Audience also enters at this time, unless the proceedings are secret.
At the start, the prosecutor reads the charge, mostly reading it from the paper all the parties have in front of them. A typical formula would be roughly as follows:
I demand punishment to John Everett Doe for aggravated assault. On the fifteenth of October this year, John Everett Doe hit and kicked Anna Erika Doe several times to the head, to the body and to the feet causing the latter to suffer concussion leading to loss of consciousness for approximately five minutes, open wounds to the head, one broken rib and several bruises in several parts of her body and feet. The offense is to be considered aggravated even as considered as a whole. John Everett Doe must be imprisoned immediately.
(Don't bother to examine that in detail, I made it up just now and the injuries may certainly be inconsistent.)
The formula is mainly following the requirements of the penal code specified for the crime in question. It also establishes the date of the offense and the identity of the defendant and the injured parties, and specifies the additional demands of the prosecutor (in this case, the demand of immediate imprisonment).
The injured parties then may or may not second the charge (this is not required in the more serious cases) and present any civil claims against the defendant related to the charge.
The defendant, or his attorney, if he has one, will then respond briefly to the charge. Either it is conceded fully, or parts or all of it is challenged. This response also specifies briefly the reasons for the challenge. In serious cases (like the one specified above), he will always have an attorney, paid by the state if necessary, but in less serious cases, the defendant often lacks an attorney, either because they think they don't need one or they cannot afford one and the charge is not serious enough to warrant a state-paid attorney. The defendant will also respond to the civil claims of the injured parties, responding separately to the cause (whether the defendant is responsible for the damage) and to the claimed amount (whether the amount claimed is a reasonable restitution to the claimed damage, independent of whether the defendant is responsible or not).
The prosecutor will then take time to lay out the events and circumstances related to the charge. Usually at this time he also presents any written documents supporting his case, which usually include a doctor's report on the injuries sustained by the victim. The injured parties are given an opportunity to add or correct the prosecutor's version of the events and circumstances.
The defense then responds to the prosecutor's presentation and the injured parties' amendments, either conceding them correct or challenging it by declaring that some or all of them is not factual. In the latter case, the defense presents its own view of the events and circumstances.
If, after this, there are points of disagreement between prosecution, injured parties and defense, evidence is introduced by calling forth the witnesses.
The hearing of a witness has the following structure. The presiding judge first asks the witness some questions to establish neutrality and whether the witness is required to testify under oath (or the equivalent solemn affirmation). The oath or affirmation is then taken by the presiding judge, if required; it is required of everyone who is not a party in the case and is not related closely to one of the parties in the case. The defendant and his relatives are not required to testify, and the defendant himself is not required to be truthful. All other witnesses are bound by law to tell the truth, regardless of whether they have given the oath or affirmation.
The witness is first asked if he knows what he has been called to testify about. He is then asked to tell the court, in his own words and without waiting for specific questions, everything he knows about the issue. The party who called the witness will then ask further questions, and the other parties are allowed to cross-examine the witness. These questioning rounds, the calling party first and the others then, continue until nobody has further questions. The witness is then excused.
It should be noted that testimony is the only part of a trial that is recorded to tape. All other parts of the hearing are merely summarised formulaicly in the minutes.
After all witnesses have been examined, the parties present their closing arguments, prosecutor first, followed by the injured parties and concluded by the defense. Finally, a similar round of stating each party's opinion on the consequences, should the charges be sustained, is held.
Finally, all parties, the audience, and the prosecutor, leave the room. The judges deliberate (see the earlier post) in the presence of the court reporter and any clerks. In a typical not too complicated case, this takes from twenty minutes to a hour, after which the parties including the prosecutor are called back in, and the audience is admitted again. The presiding judge either reads the verdict, or informs the present parties that the verdict will be issued later in office. Along with the verdict, the parties are given instructions as to how the verdict can be challenged. The verdict will also decide on the claimed damages. The trial is concluded.
In a complex case, the verdict will not be immediately ready. In such a case the parties are dismissed, after the presiding judge announces when the verdict will be available at the office of the court (typically a week or two later). The panel of judges will meet later to continue deliberation.
Typically, the same panel of judges and the same prosecutor handle more than one case during a single court day.
I will probably post one or more fictitious cases in dramatized form later.
2005-11-16T09:56+0200 - /en/judicial/finland
Trackback url: http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.info/blog/en/judicial/finland/main-hearing.trackback (trackback on rikki / trackback is broken)
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
A couple of things I find interesting.
First is the "I demand punishment" formula for the prosecutor. There have been many movements lately for justice to focus on protecting or bettering society, rather than punishing people. Has anybody in Finland objected to the prosecutor's formula on such grounds?
Second is examining the defendant's income. It seems awfully invasive to make public someone's finances. Are fines income-dependent or something? Could someone refuse to tell their income?
Thanks as always for the interesting posts!
- vasi, ti, 22 marras 2005 23:56
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
Income information is public anyway, as individual taxation figures are public (every year the press has a field day with the new taxation information, publishing the income etc. of well known and exceptionally wealthy persons; not surprisingly every year about the same time there's a few days of public discussion of whether public taxation is a good thing or not, never leading into any changes in that system).
Fines are measured in day-fines, which I suppose is intended to cover one day's income minus mandatory expenses. The euro amount of a day-fine is calculated by taking the monthly income after taxes, subtracting 255 euros and then dividing by 60; finally for each dependent (child), three euros are subtracted. However, the minimum day-fine is six euros; there is no maximum. For the example case, the monthly net income was 500 euros; subtracting 255 gives 245 euros, which divided by 60 yields 4.08 euros, which gets upgraded to the minimum of six euros.
I believe the "I demand punishment" formula is based on the theory that the court only considers demands made by the parties (though this is a little fuzzy). I'm not aware of any controversy.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 07:33
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
The court will always have access to a summary of the defendant's last completed taxation, and the court will use that if the defendant does not claim that it has changed (including specifying the new income information).
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 07:37
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
Thanks for the explanation.
- vasi, ke, 23 marras 2005 18:50
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
I really don't see what's the point of limiting access to lay judge positions to Finnish citizens and to those over 25 year old, especially in a country where 18 is the voting age and where foreigners are allowed to vote and to be a candiadate in those municipal elections.
- Martin-Éric, to, 17 marras 2005 00:34
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Wow, I've gotta say this sounds dangerous! I don't know if you have anti-immigrant parties in Finland, but many countries do (eg: the 'UKIP' in Britain). Could a party like that get a lay judge appointed who would almost always rule against immigrants!?
In my area, many towns don't have political parties. Do all Finnish areas have parties? If not, what do they do elsewhere?
Thanks again for the articles!
- vasi, to, 17 marras 2005 03:52
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
The "allot the seats to the parties" is a convention, it's not a legal requirement (and frankly is against the spirit of the system). As long as such a party is open about what it does, and it doesn't have majority, I would expect the other parties not to give them such access.
And yes, parties are a force locally, too (they are most of the time the national-level parties that participate in the parliament). This is because the municipal councillors are elected from a single district, the whole municipality. The d'Hondt system is used to allocate seats, and that requires some sort of party structure at every municipality.
Any judge (lay or not) allowing his or her decisions to be biased risks indictment and conviction for mishandling a public office.
(BTW, the political persuasion of lay judges is not in practice visible in courts. I know most of my fellow lay judges are active in politics, but unless I know them from elsewhere, I don't have a clue as to what their political persuasion is.)
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, to, 17 marras 2005 07:44
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Martin, the fact that you are considered to be capable of being one decision maker amongst several thousand (or more) on a general issue like "who should be in the parliament for the next few years" at 18 doesn't have a lot of bearing on whether you'll be suitable to be one of 3 or 4 direct decision makers on the future of one particular human being.
It's going to be tricky to work out what age *is* suitable for being a lay judge, but certainly tacking a few extra years of life experience onto a judge beyond being able to vote in elections isn't a pointless exercise, to my way of thinking.
- Matt Palmer, la, 19 marras 2005 01:50
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Matt, my only point is on equal rights for equal responsabilities.
- Martin-Éric, ti, 22 marras 2005 16:13
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Comments to this entry close in a few hours. If you still have comments or questions, email me at antti-juhani@kaijanaho.info; I can make a new entry responding to those comments and opening a new comment thread for discussion.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 19:11
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
That defendants are neither bound to nor expected to tell the truth, and that the decision is largely based on outside witnesses says a lot about this country's prejudicial manners. Sad.
- Martin-Éric, to, 17 marras 2005 00:49
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
I found it odd, too, that defendants were in no way required to tell the truth, but when I thought about it further, it really isn't that far off what happens in other jurisdictions -- everybody expects defendants to lie, as the consequences of telling "the whole truth" on the stand can be pretty severe. I'm curious to know how judges (in general) treat the statements of defendants, when there is an an explicit statement that what the defendant is saying on the stand could be 100% A-grade bulldust. Over here (.au), the jury is able to make their own judgment on the weight they give any witness' testimony, and I presume that a judge in the Finnish system could choose to give less weight to any particular witness' testimony, including that of the defendant. Does it work out in practice, then, that everyone more of less turns to their PSPs when the defendant takes the stand, since they know that they're going to give very little weight to what the defendant has to say anyway?
- Matt Palmer, la, 19 marras 2005 01:56
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
In general, I don't think the formal truth obligation or its lack has much importance when deciding whether a story is credible. It is very hard for me to say anything more without discussing actual cases, so I hope you'll all forgive me for this vague statement :)
Of course, perjury is a crime and one can be prosecuted for it if there is probable cause (and convicted in the absence of reasonable doubt). It is fairly rare to my knowledge, though.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, la, 19 marras 2005 23:16
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
Comments to this entry are closing in a couple of hours. Email me at antti-juhani@kaijanaho.info if you have comments or questions later on; I can create new posts to answer them and to allow for further debate :)
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 07:34
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Interesting. The lay judges seem to form a sort of hybrid judge-jury system -- like the Anglo-American system, they are laypeople and are responsible for deciding innocence or guilt, but there isn't the same separation between the legal expert who rules on matters of law and the jury which rules on matters of fact (which witnesses are credible, what actually happened etc).
But what, in the Finnish system, corresponds to the role of the American supreme court in deciding that the legislature has overstepped its bounds (passing a law that violates the constitution or treaties that the country is bound to follow)? That is really the only sense that American courts "make law": they resolve ambiguities and the law and sometimes rule that a law is unconstitutional, or that a local government has exceeded its authority.
- Joe Buck, ti, 15 marras 2005 03:06
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
No Finnish court has authority to strike down law. Any court is obligated to ignore ordinary law that is in "obvious conflict" with the constitution, but this is in practice very rare. The constitutionality of laws is decided by a special committee of the unicameral parliament, while each bill is being processed by the parliament. Governmental authority is checked by the administrative courts that any person or entity affected by a governmental decision at any level can appeal to, if one considers the decision to be unlawful. This appeal of governmental decisions is somewhat a national sport, and occasionally people in high positions propose limiting that right due to its preceived abuse.
The lack of a constitutional court is a problem according to many Finns, myself included.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 06:37
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Thanks for the article, it's always fun to learn new things. A couple of quick questions, if you have time....
* Rules of evidence: If these rules aren't strict, how do courts deal with evidence that (for good reasons) isn't allowed in the English tradition? For example, it's not allowed in the USA for witnesses to report hearsay and opinion, to prevent bias against an unpopular party to the lawsuit. Also, evidence gathered illegally is not allowed to be considered, such as if the police broke into someone's home without a warrant.
Do Finnish courts accept this evidence equally? Do they hear the evidence, but trust the judges to give it less or no credence?
* Plea bargains: Does the Finnish system have the concept of a 'plea' at all? I know many civil law systems don't. Makes sense, in my opinion! I think the concept of a plea bargain is very silly and dangerous.
* Regular courts and administrative courts: This whole concept seems pretty strange to me. Do the two courts ever argue over jurisdiction? Eg: If an administrator uses his privileges or authority in a way that could be deemed a criminal act.
* How are judges chosen, especially lay judges?
As for constitutional courts, I like the system we have here in Canada.
In the USA, laws can only be invalidated when the Supreme Court hears a relevant case. So the government can even intentionally pass a law that is unconstitutional, and have that law be active for at least a few months or years. But in France, laws can only be invalidated when they are referred to a special constitutional court. If several years later, the law is discovered to have unintentional consequences that are unconstitutional, tant pis!
In Canada, we allow both kinds of examination of laws. The government can refer a question to the Supreme Court, to ask 'do you think this potential law is unconstitutional?'. (This decision is technically non-binding.) But the Supreme Court can also invalidate laws on appeal if they are unconstitutional, just like in the USA.
This system seems to work well for us! But we have some problems with choosing judges for the Supreme Court, so maybe one day Finland will invent an even better system. :-)
- vasi, ti, 15 marras 2005 07:42
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Some of those questions are beyond my competence. I'll have to get back to you on the rules of evidence after I've consulted the criminal judicial process book I received as a birthday present recently. In practice, the legally trained judge is primarily responsible for guinding us lay judges in the finer points of law. (It does present interesting questions about the criminal liability of a judge, which does exist.)
I'm going to write a separate article on the lay judge system in the near future.
On this question: "Regular courts and administrative courts: This whole concept seems pretty strange to me. Do the two courts ever argue over jurisdiction? Eg: If an administrator uses his privileges or authority in a way that could be deemed a criminal act."
I would say that there are two separate causes of action in that: the question of whether the decision should be overturned as unlawful belongs to the administrative courts, while the question of whether the administrator committed a crime when making that decision belongs to the regular courts. In that sense I think both court systems have jurisdiction but their jurisdiction does not overlap, ie. they consider separate questions. In practice, I'd assume that the regular court would wait for the administrative court's decision before trying the criminal case (in practice, I'd say that the prosecutor would do the waiting before pressing charges).
On the plea question: the defendant does state guilty/not-guilty at the start of the main trial, as will become clear in a separate article. A not-guilty plea must be accompanied by a short statement of the main substantial disagreement with prosecution (for example, "not guilty because I was not there", "not guilty because there is no crime here").
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 08:09
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
On the plea question, again: the "plea" at the start of the trial is a part of the initial segment of the main trial, where the court determines the points of dispute. If the defendant does not dispute any of the facts claimed by the prosecution, then typically no evidence is examined, and all those facts are accepted as given. Of course, the court does consider whether the "plea" is believable, but it is rare to disregard a guilty plea.
What makes plea bargaining ineffective in Finland is that the court is not constrained to the prosecution's legal analysis. If the undisputed facts presented to the court in the opinion of the court indicate a murder beyond reasonable doubt, then it does not matter that the prosecution may have only demanded punishment for involuntary manslaughter. The court will convict the defendant of murder. The only thing about the original prosecution's case that constrains the court is that it can only investigate the act that the prosecution demands punishment for.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 08:29
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Good to know someone out there is reading my blog. Thanks too, for giving perspective into another "minority" legal system. I think it's quite important to have an idea of how other countries have implemented their legal systems -- compare, contrast, and maybe get some ideas to put to lawmakers in our own jurisdictions.
I'm particularly interested in your thoughts on the efficacy (and also the practice) of lay judges. Recently, there have been some loud noises made about a switch from the practice of unanimous verdicts (in order to convict or acquit, a jury must be all in agreement, otherwise the jury is dismissed and the trial starts again) to majority verdicts (take a straw poll, and whichever side has more votes "wins"). I'd love to know more about the alternatives to both of these choices.
I'm looking forward to reading more about *your* legal adventures!
- Matt
- Matt Palmer, ti, 15 marras 2005 08:58
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Obviously, I cannot discuss any actual cases I have been involved in. The public record of a case is all there is, and members of the court do not comment or explain the decisions further.
But I will be talking in general terms, and I will be offering dramatized accounts of fictional cases, based on my experience in general.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 09:47
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Thanks for your detailed answers, I look forward to your future articles.
- vasi, ke, 16 marras 2005 01:58
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Sorry to be asking a comment based on my own ignorance- but the way you were describing the Finnish legal system seemed to indicate that the Finnish legal system is a hybrid between the adversarial and inquisitorial court systems- (I am from Australia where we have an adversarial system) and I am curious as to how the Finnish classify their own legal system- do you describe it as inquisitorial ?(I think another name for this is a civil law system as opposed to a common law system)
- Jamie, su, 20 marras 2005 10:15
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
I believe the new system is supposed to be adversarial. What makes you think otherwise?
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, su, 20 marras 2005 12:12
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
I think I may have thought that most of the socialist countries in Europe would have inquisitorial style systems because the emphasis on justice shifts more to the judge as an investigator, rather than allowing the richest person to obtain the best lawyers and usually win- buts thats interesting that you have adversarial- goes to show all my stereotyping of your government turned out to be wrong on this aspect.(thanks for the quick reply)
- Jamie, ma, 21 marras 2005 12:04
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Oh well, Finland was never socialist in the sense of the Warsaw pact :) And I believe eg. France has traditionally had an inquisitional system (dunno about the current system).
The Finnish court system descends from the Viking system of Things, which is still evident in the name of the District Courts: käräjäoikeus is literally translated the Court of the Thing. (Thing being, according to Wikipedia, the modern English term for it; the modern meaning of 'thing' being a derivative of that meaning.)
There were a number of big reforms in Finnish court systems in the 1990's. I'll write about them later.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ma, 21 marras 2005 13:21
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Unfortunately, comments are now closed (the comments system does not allow me to extend this timeout specifically for a particular blog posting - I made this posting by editing the database). Email me at antti-juhani@kaijanaho.info if you have more questions or comments; I will make new postings if necessary.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 22 marras 2005 06:51
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
A couple of things I find interesting.
First is the "I demand punishment" formula for the prosecutor. There have been many movements lately for justice to focus on protecting or bettering society, rather than punishing people. Has anybody in Finland objected to the prosecutor's formula on such grounds?
Second is examining the defendant's income. It seems awfully invasive to make public someone's finances. Are fines income-dependent or something? Could someone refuse to tell their income?
Thanks as always for the interesting posts!
- vasi, ti, 22 marras 2005 23:56
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
Income information is public anyway, as individual taxation figures are public (every year the press has a field day with the new taxation information, publishing the income etc. of well known and exceptionally wealthy persons; not surprisingly every year about the same time there's a few days of public discussion of whether public taxation is a good thing or not, never leading into any changes in that system).
Fines are measured in day-fines, which I suppose is intended to cover one day's income minus mandatory expenses. The euro amount of a day-fine is calculated by taking the monthly income after taxes, subtracting 255 euros and then dividing by 60; finally for each dependent (child), three euros are subtracted. However, the minimum day-fine is six euros; there is no maximum. For the example case, the monthly net income was 500 euros; subtracting 255 gives 245 euros, which divided by 60 yields 4.08 euros, which gets upgraded to the minimum of six euros.
I believe the "I demand punishment" formula is based on the theory that the court only considers demands made by the parties (though this is a little fuzzy). I'm not aware of any controversy.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 07:33
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
The court will always have access to a summary of the defendant's last completed taxation, and the court will use that if the defendant does not claim that it has changed (including specifying the new income information).
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 07:37
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
Thanks for the explanation.
- vasi, ke, 23 marras 2005 18:50
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
I really don't see what's the point of limiting access to lay judge positions to Finnish citizens and to those over 25 year old, especially in a country where 18 is the voting age and where foreigners are allowed to vote and to be a candiadate in those municipal elections.
- Martin-Éric, to, 17 marras 2005 00:34
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Wow, I've gotta say this sounds dangerous! I don't know if you have anti-immigrant parties in Finland, but many countries do (eg: the 'UKIP' in Britain). Could a party like that get a lay judge appointed who would almost always rule against immigrants!?
In my area, many towns don't have political parties. Do all Finnish areas have parties? If not, what do they do elsewhere?
Thanks again for the articles!
- vasi, to, 17 marras 2005 03:52
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
The "allot the seats to the parties" is a convention, it's not a legal requirement (and frankly is against the spirit of the system). As long as such a party is open about what it does, and it doesn't have majority, I would expect the other parties not to give them such access.
And yes, parties are a force locally, too (they are most of the time the national-level parties that participate in the parliament). This is because the municipal councillors are elected from a single district, the whole municipality. The d'Hondt system is used to allocate seats, and that requires some sort of party structure at every municipality.
Any judge (lay or not) allowing his or her decisions to be biased risks indictment and conviction for mishandling a public office.
(BTW, the political persuasion of lay judges is not in practice visible in courts. I know most of my fellow lay judges are active in politics, but unless I know them from elsewhere, I don't have a clue as to what their political persuasion is.)
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, to, 17 marras 2005 07:44
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Martin, the fact that you are considered to be capable of being one decision maker amongst several thousand (or more) on a general issue like "who should be in the parliament for the next few years" at 18 doesn't have a lot of bearing on whether you'll be suitable to be one of 3 or 4 direct decision makers on the future of one particular human being.
It's going to be tricky to work out what age *is* suitable for being a lay judge, but certainly tacking a few extra years of life experience onto a judge beyond being able to vote in elections isn't a pointless exercise, to my way of thinking.
- Matt Palmer, la, 19 marras 2005 01:50
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Matt, my only point is on equal rights for equal responsabilities.
- Martin-Éric, ti, 22 marras 2005 16:13
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Comments to this entry close in a few hours. If you still have comments or questions, email me at antti-juhani@kaijanaho.info; I can make a new entry responding to those comments and opening a new comment thread for discussion.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 19:11
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
That defendants are neither bound to nor expected to tell the truth, and that the decision is largely based on outside witnesses says a lot about this country's prejudicial manners. Sad.
- Martin-Éric, to, 17 marras 2005 00:49
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
I found it odd, too, that defendants were in no way required to tell the truth, but when I thought about it further, it really isn't that far off what happens in other jurisdictions -- everybody expects defendants to lie, as the consequences of telling "the whole truth" on the stand can be pretty severe. I'm curious to know how judges (in general) treat the statements of defendants, when there is an an explicit statement that what the defendant is saying on the stand could be 100% A-grade bulldust. Over here (.au), the jury is able to make their own judgment on the weight they give any witness' testimony, and I presume that a judge in the Finnish system could choose to give less weight to any particular witness' testimony, including that of the defendant. Does it work out in practice, then, that everyone more of less turns to their PSPs when the defendant takes the stand, since they know that they're going to give very little weight to what the defendant has to say anyway?
- Matt Palmer, la, 19 marras 2005 01:56
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
In general, I don't think the formal truth obligation or its lack has much importance when deciding whether a story is credible. It is very hard for me to say anything more without discussing actual cases, so I hope you'll all forgive me for this vague statement :)
Of course, perjury is a crime and one can be prosecuted for it if there is probable cause (and convicted in the absence of reasonable doubt). It is fairly rare to my knowledge, though.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, la, 19 marras 2005 23:16
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
Comments to this entry are closing in a couple of hours. Email me at antti-juhani@kaijanaho.info if you have comments or questions later on; I can create new posts to answer them and to allow for further debate :)
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 07:34
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Interesting. The lay judges seem to form a sort of hybrid judge-jury system -- like the Anglo-American system, they are laypeople and are responsible for deciding innocence or guilt, but there isn't the same separation between the legal expert who rules on matters of law and the jury which rules on matters of fact (which witnesses are credible, what actually happened etc).
But what, in the Finnish system, corresponds to the role of the American supreme court in deciding that the legislature has overstepped its bounds (passing a law that violates the constitution or treaties that the country is bound to follow)? That is really the only sense that American courts "make law": they resolve ambiguities and the law and sometimes rule that a law is unconstitutional, or that a local government has exceeded its authority.
- Joe Buck, ti, 15 marras 2005 03:06
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
No Finnish court has authority to strike down law. Any court is obligated to ignore ordinary law that is in "obvious conflict" with the constitution, but this is in practice very rare. The constitutionality of laws is decided by a special committee of the unicameral parliament, while each bill is being processed by the parliament. Governmental authority is checked by the administrative courts that any person or entity affected by a governmental decision at any level can appeal to, if one considers the decision to be unlawful. This appeal of governmental decisions is somewhat a national sport, and occasionally people in high positions propose limiting that right due to its preceived abuse.
The lack of a constitutional court is a problem according to many Finns, myself included.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 06:37
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Thanks for the article, it's always fun to learn new things. A couple of quick questions, if you have time....
* Rules of evidence: If these rules aren't strict, how do courts deal with evidence that (for good reasons) isn't allowed in the English tradition? For example, it's not allowed in the USA for witnesses to report hearsay and opinion, to prevent bias against an unpopular party to the lawsuit. Also, evidence gathered illegally is not allowed to be considered, such as if the police broke into someone's home without a warrant.
Do Finnish courts accept this evidence equally? Do they hear the evidence, but trust the judges to give it less or no credence?
* Plea bargains: Does the Finnish system have the concept of a 'plea' at all? I know many civil law systems don't. Makes sense, in my opinion! I think the concept of a plea bargain is very silly and dangerous.
* Regular courts and administrative courts: This whole concept seems pretty strange to me. Do the two courts ever argue over jurisdiction? Eg: If an administrator uses his privileges or authority in a way that could be deemed a criminal act.
* How are judges chosen, especially lay judges?
As for constitutional courts, I like the system we have here in Canada.
In the USA, laws can only be invalidated when the Supreme Court hears a relevant case. So the government can even intentionally pass a law that is unconstitutional, and have that law be active for at least a few months or years. But in France, laws can only be invalidated when they are referred to a special constitutional court. If several years later, the law is discovered to have unintentional consequences that are unconstitutional, tant pis!
In Canada, we allow both kinds of examination of laws. The government can refer a question to the Supreme Court, to ask 'do you think this potential law is unconstitutional?'. (This decision is technically non-binding.) But the Supreme Court can also invalidate laws on appeal if they are unconstitutional, just like in the USA.
This system seems to work well for us! But we have some problems with choosing judges for the Supreme Court, so maybe one day Finland will invent an even better system. :-)
- vasi, ti, 15 marras 2005 07:42
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Some of those questions are beyond my competence. I'll have to get back to you on the rules of evidence after I've consulted the criminal judicial process book I received as a birthday present recently. In practice, the legally trained judge is primarily responsible for guinding us lay judges in the finer points of law. (It does present interesting questions about the criminal liability of a judge, which does exist.)
I'm going to write a separate article on the lay judge system in the near future.
On this question: "Regular courts and administrative courts: This whole concept seems pretty strange to me. Do the two courts ever argue over jurisdiction? Eg: If an administrator uses his privileges or authority in a way that could be deemed a criminal act."
I would say that there are two separate causes of action in that: the question of whether the decision should be overturned as unlawful belongs to the administrative courts, while the question of whether the administrator committed a crime when making that decision belongs to the regular courts. In that sense I think both court systems have jurisdiction but their jurisdiction does not overlap, ie. they consider separate questions. In practice, I'd assume that the regular court would wait for the administrative court's decision before trying the criminal case (in practice, I'd say that the prosecutor would do the waiting before pressing charges).
On the plea question: the defendant does state guilty/not-guilty at the start of the main trial, as will become clear in a separate article. A not-guilty plea must be accompanied by a short statement of the main substantial disagreement with prosecution (for example, "not guilty because I was not there", "not guilty because there is no crime here").
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 08:09
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
On the plea question, again: the "plea" at the start of the trial is a part of the initial segment of the main trial, where the court determines the points of dispute. If the defendant does not dispute any of the facts claimed by the prosecution, then typically no evidence is examined, and all those facts are accepted as given. Of course, the court does consider whether the "plea" is believable, but it is rare to disregard a guilty plea.
What makes plea bargaining ineffective in Finland is that the court is not constrained to the prosecution's legal analysis. If the undisputed facts presented to the court in the opinion of the court indicate a murder beyond reasonable doubt, then it does not matter that the prosecution may have only demanded punishment for involuntary manslaughter. The court will convict the defendant of murder. The only thing about the original prosecution's case that constrains the court is that it can only investigate the act that the prosecution demands punishment for.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 08:29
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Good to know someone out there is reading my blog. Thanks too, for giving perspective into another "minority" legal system. I think it's quite important to have an idea of how other countries have implemented their legal systems -- compare, contrast, and maybe get some ideas to put to lawmakers in our own jurisdictions.
I'm particularly interested in your thoughts on the efficacy (and also the practice) of lay judges. Recently, there have been some loud noises made about a switch from the practice of unanimous verdicts (in order to convict or acquit, a jury must be all in agreement, otherwise the jury is dismissed and the trial starts again) to majority verdicts (take a straw poll, and whichever side has more votes "wins"). I'd love to know more about the alternatives to both of these choices.
I'm looking forward to reading more about *your* legal adventures!
- Matt
- Matt Palmer, ti, 15 marras 2005 08:58
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Obviously, I cannot discuss any actual cases I have been involved in. The public record of a case is all there is, and members of the court do not comment or explain the decisions further.
But I will be talking in general terms, and I will be offering dramatized accounts of fictional cases, based on my experience in general.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 09:47
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Thanks for your detailed answers, I look forward to your future articles.
- vasi, ke, 16 marras 2005 01:58
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Sorry to be asking a comment based on my own ignorance- but the way you were describing the Finnish legal system seemed to indicate that the Finnish legal system is a hybrid between the adversarial and inquisitorial court systems- (I am from Australia where we have an adversarial system) and I am curious as to how the Finnish classify their own legal system- do you describe it as inquisitorial ?(I think another name for this is a civil law system as opposed to a common law system)
- Jamie, su, 20 marras 2005 10:15
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
I believe the new system is supposed to be adversarial. What makes you think otherwise?
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, su, 20 marras 2005 12:12
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
I think I may have thought that most of the socialist countries in Europe would have inquisitorial style systems because the emphasis on justice shifts more to the judge as an investigator, rather than allowing the richest person to obtain the best lawyers and usually win- buts thats interesting that you have adversarial- goes to show all my stereotyping of your government turned out to be wrong on this aspect.(thanks for the quick reply)
- Jamie, ma, 21 marras 2005 12:04
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Oh well, Finland was never socialist in the sense of the Warsaw pact :) And I believe eg. France has traditionally had an inquisitional system (dunno about the current system).
The Finnish court system descends from the Viking system of Things, which is still evident in the name of the District Courts: käräjäoikeus is literally translated the Court of the Thing. (Thing being, according to Wikipedia, the modern English term for it; the modern meaning of 'thing' being a derivative of that meaning.)
There were a number of big reforms in Finnish court systems in the 1990's. I'll write about them later.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ma, 21 marras 2005 13:21
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Unfortunately, comments are now closed (the comments system does not allow me to extend this timeout specifically for a particular blog posting - I made this posting by editing the database). Email me at antti-juhani@kaijanaho.info if you have more questions or comments; I will make new postings if necessary.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 22 marras 2005 06:51
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
A couple of things I find interesting.
First is the "I demand punishment" formula for the prosecutor. There have been many movements lately for justice to focus on protecting or bettering society, rather than punishing people. Has anybody in Finland objected to the prosecutor's formula on such grounds?
Second is examining the defendant's income. It seems awfully invasive to make public someone's finances. Are fines income-dependent or something? Could someone refuse to tell their income?
Thanks as always for the interesting posts!
- vasi, ti, 22 marras 2005 23:56
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
Income information is public anyway, as individual taxation figures are public (every year the press has a field day with the new taxation information, publishing the income etc. of well known and exceptionally wealthy persons; not surprisingly every year about the same time there's a few days of public discussion of whether public taxation is a good thing or not, never leading into any changes in that system).
Fines are measured in day-fines, which I suppose is intended to cover one day's income minus mandatory expenses. The euro amount of a day-fine is calculated by taking the monthly income after taxes, subtracting 255 euros and then dividing by 60; finally for each dependent (child), three euros are subtracted. However, the minimum day-fine is six euros; there is no maximum. For the example case, the monthly net income was 500 euros; subtracting 255 gives 245 euros, which divided by 60 yields 4.08 euros, which gets upgraded to the minimum of six euros.
I believe the "I demand punishment" formula is based on the theory that the court only considers demands made by the parties (though this is a little fuzzy). I'm not aware of any controversy.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 07:33
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
The court will always have access to a summary of the defendant's last completed taxation, and the court will use that if the defendant does not claim that it has changed (including specifying the new income information).
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 07:37
Re: Driving While Intoxicated – A Glimpse of Finnish Criminal Justice, Part One
Thanks for the explanation.
- vasi, ke, 23 marras 2005 18:50
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Interesting. The lay judges seem to form a sort of hybrid judge-jury system -- like the Anglo-American system, they are laypeople and are responsible for deciding innocence or guilt, but there isn't the same separation between the legal expert who rules on matters of law and the jury which rules on matters of fact (which witnesses are credible, what actually happened etc).
But what, in the Finnish system, corresponds to the role of the American supreme court in deciding that the legislature has overstepped its bounds (passing a law that violates the constitution or treaties that the country is bound to follow)? That is really the only sense that American courts "make law": they resolve ambiguities and the law and sometimes rule that a law is unconstitutional, or that a local government has exceeded its authority.
- Joe Buck, ti, 15 marras 2005 03:06
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
No Finnish court has authority to strike down law. Any court is obligated to ignore ordinary law that is in "obvious conflict" with the constitution, but this is in practice very rare. The constitutionality of laws is decided by a special committee of the unicameral parliament, while each bill is being processed by the parliament. Governmental authority is checked by the administrative courts that any person or entity affected by a governmental decision at any level can appeal to, if one considers the decision to be unlawful. This appeal of governmental decisions is somewhat a national sport, and occasionally people in high positions propose limiting that right due to its preceived abuse.
The lack of a constitutional court is a problem according to many Finns, myself included.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 06:37
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Thanks for the article, it's always fun to learn new things. A couple of quick questions, if you have time....
* Rules of evidence: If these rules aren't strict, how do courts deal with evidence that (for good reasons) isn't allowed in the English tradition? For example, it's not allowed in the USA for witnesses to report hearsay and opinion, to prevent bias against an unpopular party to the lawsuit. Also, evidence gathered illegally is not allowed to be considered, such as if the police broke into someone's home without a warrant.
Do Finnish courts accept this evidence equally? Do they hear the evidence, but trust the judges to give it less or no credence?
* Plea bargains: Does the Finnish system have the concept of a 'plea' at all? I know many civil law systems don't. Makes sense, in my opinion! I think the concept of a plea bargain is very silly and dangerous.
* Regular courts and administrative courts: This whole concept seems pretty strange to me. Do the two courts ever argue over jurisdiction? Eg: If an administrator uses his privileges or authority in a way that could be deemed a criminal act.
* How are judges chosen, especially lay judges?
As for constitutional courts, I like the system we have here in Canada.
In the USA, laws can only be invalidated when the Supreme Court hears a relevant case. So the government can even intentionally pass a law that is unconstitutional, and have that law be active for at least a few months or years. But in France, laws can only be invalidated when they are referred to a special constitutional court. If several years later, the law is discovered to have unintentional consequences that are unconstitutional, tant pis!
In Canada, we allow both kinds of examination of laws. The government can refer a question to the Supreme Court, to ask 'do you think this potential law is unconstitutional?'. (This decision is technically non-binding.) But the Supreme Court can also invalidate laws on appeal if they are unconstitutional, just like in the USA.
This system seems to work well for us! But we have some problems with choosing judges for the Supreme Court, so maybe one day Finland will invent an even better system. :-)
- vasi, ti, 15 marras 2005 07:42
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Some of those questions are beyond my competence. I'll have to get back to you on the rules of evidence after I've consulted the criminal judicial process book I received as a birthday present recently. In practice, the legally trained judge is primarily responsible for guinding us lay judges in the finer points of law. (It does present interesting questions about the criminal liability of a judge, which does exist.)
I'm going to write a separate article on the lay judge system in the near future.
On this question: "Regular courts and administrative courts: This whole concept seems pretty strange to me. Do the two courts ever argue over jurisdiction? Eg: If an administrator uses his privileges or authority in a way that could be deemed a criminal act."
I would say that there are two separate causes of action in that: the question of whether the decision should be overturned as unlawful belongs to the administrative courts, while the question of whether the administrator committed a crime when making that decision belongs to the regular courts. In that sense I think both court systems have jurisdiction but their jurisdiction does not overlap, ie. they consider separate questions. In practice, I'd assume that the regular court would wait for the administrative court's decision before trying the criminal case (in practice, I'd say that the prosecutor would do the waiting before pressing charges).
On the plea question: the defendant does state guilty/not-guilty at the start of the main trial, as will become clear in a separate article. A not-guilty plea must be accompanied by a short statement of the main substantial disagreement with prosecution (for example, "not guilty because I was not there", "not guilty because there is no crime here").
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 08:09
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
On the plea question, again: the "plea" at the start of the trial is a part of the initial segment of the main trial, where the court determines the points of dispute. If the defendant does not dispute any of the facts claimed by the prosecution, then typically no evidence is examined, and all those facts are accepted as given. Of course, the court does consider whether the "plea" is believable, but it is rare to disregard a guilty plea.
What makes plea bargaining ineffective in Finland is that the court is not constrained to the prosecution's legal analysis. If the undisputed facts presented to the court in the opinion of the court indicate a murder beyond reasonable doubt, then it does not matter that the prosecution may have only demanded punishment for involuntary manslaughter. The court will convict the defendant of murder. The only thing about the original prosecution's case that constrains the court is that it can only investigate the act that the prosecution demands punishment for.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 08:29
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Good to know someone out there is reading my blog. Thanks too, for giving perspective into another "minority" legal system. I think it's quite important to have an idea of how other countries have implemented their legal systems -- compare, contrast, and maybe get some ideas to put to lawmakers in our own jurisdictions.
I'm particularly interested in your thoughts on the efficacy (and also the practice) of lay judges. Recently, there have been some loud noises made about a switch from the practice of unanimous verdicts (in order to convict or acquit, a jury must be all in agreement, otherwise the jury is dismissed and the trial starts again) to majority verdicts (take a straw poll, and whichever side has more votes "wins"). I'd love to know more about the alternatives to both of these choices.
I'm looking forward to reading more about *your* legal adventures!
- Matt
- Matt Palmer, ti, 15 marras 2005 08:58
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Obviously, I cannot discuss any actual cases I have been involved in. The public record of a case is all there is, and members of the court do not comment or explain the decisions further.
But I will be talking in general terms, and I will be offering dramatized accounts of fictional cases, based on my experience in general.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 15 marras 2005 09:47
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Thanks for your detailed answers, I look forward to your future articles.
- vasi, ke, 16 marras 2005 01:58
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Sorry to be asking a comment based on my own ignorance- but the way you were describing the Finnish legal system seemed to indicate that the Finnish legal system is a hybrid between the adversarial and inquisitorial court systems- (I am from Australia where we have an adversarial system) and I am curious as to how the Finnish classify their own legal system- do you describe it as inquisitorial ?(I think another name for this is a civil law system as opposed to a common law system)
- Jamie, su, 20 marras 2005 10:15
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
I believe the new system is supposed to be adversarial. What makes you think otherwise?
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, su, 20 marras 2005 12:12
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
I think I may have thought that most of the socialist countries in Europe would have inquisitorial style systems because the emphasis on justice shifts more to the judge as an investigator, rather than allowing the richest person to obtain the best lawyers and usually win- buts thats interesting that you have adversarial- goes to show all my stereotyping of your government turned out to be wrong on this aspect.(thanks for the quick reply)
- Jamie, ma, 21 marras 2005 12:04
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Oh well, Finland was never socialist in the sense of the Warsaw pact :) And I believe eg. France has traditionally had an inquisitional system (dunno about the current system).
The Finnish court system descends from the Viking system of Things, which is still evident in the name of the District Courts: käräjäoikeus is literally translated the Court of the Thing. (Thing being, according to Wikipedia, the modern English term for it; the modern meaning of 'thing' being a derivative of that meaning.)
There were a number of big reforms in Finnish court systems in the 1990's. I'll write about them later.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ma, 21 marras 2005 13:21
Re: The Finnish Criminal Court System
Unfortunately, comments are now closed (the comments system does not allow me to extend this timeout specifically for a particular blog posting - I made this posting by editing the database). Email me at antti-juhani@kaijanaho.info if you have more questions or comments; I will make new postings if necessary.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ti, 22 marras 2005 06:51
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
I really don't see what's the point of limiting access to lay judge positions to Finnish citizens and to those over 25 year old, especially in a country where 18 is the voting age and where foreigners are allowed to vote and to be a candiadate in those municipal elections.
- Martin-Éric, to, 17 marras 2005 00:34
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Wow, I've gotta say this sounds dangerous! I don't know if you have anti-immigrant parties in Finland, but many countries do (eg: the 'UKIP' in Britain). Could a party like that get a lay judge appointed who would almost always rule against immigrants!?
In my area, many towns don't have political parties. Do all Finnish areas have parties? If not, what do they do elsewhere?
Thanks again for the articles!
- vasi, to, 17 marras 2005 03:52
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
The "allot the seats to the parties" is a convention, it's not a legal requirement (and frankly is against the spirit of the system). As long as such a party is open about what it does, and it doesn't have majority, I would expect the other parties not to give them such access.
And yes, parties are a force locally, too (they are most of the time the national-level parties that participate in the parliament). This is because the municipal councillors are elected from a single district, the whole municipality. The d'Hondt system is used to allocate seats, and that requires some sort of party structure at every municipality.
Any judge (lay or not) allowing his or her decisions to be biased risks indictment and conviction for mishandling a public office.
(BTW, the political persuasion of lay judges is not in practice visible in courts. I know most of my fellow lay judges are active in politics, but unless I know them from elsewhere, I don't have a clue as to what their political persuasion is.)
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, to, 17 marras 2005 07:44
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Martin, the fact that you are considered to be capable of being one decision maker amongst several thousand (or more) on a general issue like "who should be in the parliament for the next few years" at 18 doesn't have a lot of bearing on whether you'll be suitable to be one of 3 or 4 direct decision makers on the future of one particular human being.
It's going to be tricky to work out what age *is* suitable for being a lay judge, but certainly tacking a few extra years of life experience onto a judge beyond being able to vote in elections isn't a pointless exercise, to my way of thinking.
- Matt Palmer, la, 19 marras 2005 01:50
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Matt, my only point is on equal rights for equal responsabilities.
- Martin-Éric, ti, 22 marras 2005 16:13
Re: The Finnish lay judge system
Comments to this entry close in a few hours. If you still have comments or questions, email me at antti-juhani@kaijanaho.info; I can make a new entry responding to those comments and opening a new comment thread for discussion.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 19:11
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
That defendants are neither bound to nor expected to tell the truth, and that the decision is largely based on outside witnesses says a lot about this country's prejudicial manners. Sad.
- Martin-Éric, to, 17 marras 2005 00:49
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
I found it odd, too, that defendants were in no way required to tell the truth, but when I thought about it further, it really isn't that far off what happens in other jurisdictions -- everybody expects defendants to lie, as the consequences of telling "the whole truth" on the stand can be pretty severe. I'm curious to know how judges (in general) treat the statements of defendants, when there is an an explicit statement that what the defendant is saying on the stand could be 100% A-grade bulldust. Over here (.au), the jury is able to make their own judgment on the weight they give any witness' testimony, and I presume that a judge in the Finnish system could choose to give less weight to any particular witness' testimony, including that of the defendant. Does it work out in practice, then, that everyone more of less turns to their PSPs when the defendant takes the stand, since they know that they're going to give very little weight to what the defendant has to say anyway?
- Matt Palmer, la, 19 marras 2005 01:56
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
In general, I don't think the formal truth obligation or its lack has much importance when deciding whether a story is credible. It is very hard for me to say anything more without discussing actual cases, so I hope you'll all forgive me for this vague statement :)
Of course, perjury is a crime and one can be prosecuted for it if there is probable cause (and convicted in the absence of reasonable doubt). It is fairly rare to my knowledge, though.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, la, 19 marras 2005 23:16
Re: The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
Comments to this entry are closing in a couple of hours. Email me at antti-juhani@kaijanaho.info if you have comments or questions later on; I can create new posts to answer them and to allow for further debate :)
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ke, 23 marras 2005 07:34
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