Author: Hodgson, Jacqueline

Source: Legal Ethics, Volume 9, Number 1, 2006 , pp. 125-144(20)

Publisher: Hart Publishing

Abstract:

Using the example of contemporary France, this paper considers the legal and ethical constraints upon the role and function of the criminal defence lawyer in a criminal procedure rooted in the inquisitorial model. Recent reforms promise to open up the space occupied by the criminal defence lawyer, but in practice, the defence role continues to be overshadowed by the dominance of judicial supervision - both as a theoretical organising feature and in the ways in which this shapes legal and occupational cultures. The paper argues that despite the limitations of judicial supervision in practice and the expectations of increased defence participation in measures designed to accelerate the disposition of cases, the legal and ethical regulation of the lawyer continues to define her role as auxilliary to that of the investigating judge rather than as an automomous actor in the criminal process.

Keywords: Criminal defence; ethics; France; inquisitorial

Document Type: Research article

Publication date: 2006-01-01

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• Legal Ethics is an international and interdisciplinary journal devoted to the field of legal ethics.
  The journal provides an intellectual meeting ground for academic lawyers, practitioners and policy-makers to debate developments shaping the ethics of law and its practice at the micro and macro levels.
  Its focus is broad enough to encompass empirical research on the ethics and conduct of the legal professions and judiciary, studies of legal ethics education and moral development, ethics development in contemporary professional practice, the ethical responsibilities of law schools, professional bodies and government, and jurisprudential or wider philosophical reflections on law as an ethical system and on the moral obligations of individual lawyers.
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