Early access to a legal assistance within criminal proceedings in European jurisdictions: "England & Wales as a case study"

Bassim Jameel Almusawi

Abstract


The main purpose of this article is to evaluate the existing law and practice regarding the right of a suspect of access to a legal assistance in England & Wales. the study analyses this conferred right by taking a procedural approach to assess whether the English criminal justice system is in line with European human rights guarantees in criminal proceedings , particularly the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the United Kingdom is a state party. the current study focuses on the right of access to a legal assistance, and doctrinal legal research was adopted in the conduct of this research, and both primary and secondary data sources were assessed. The paper critically analyses the relevant legal rules, case law as well as looking at other European jurisdictions and intentional human rights norm, with special reference to the jurisprudence of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in order to the right in criminal justice system in England & Wales can be critically analysed. The key findings unearthed by the current study are that even with the many welcome identified guarantees that have been made to respect the right of a suspect to have a legal assistance in England & Wales, however, it remains clear that the English criminal justice system is still under considerable shortage , which need further suggested reforms to be made. The study found certain weaknesses between the law and working practice. The present study concludes that further reform is required in order to ensure implementing the rule of law during every day working practice.

Keywords


legal assistance; fair trial; European Jurisprudences; England & Wales; criminal proceedings.

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5102/rdi.v20i2.9110

ISSN 2236-997X (impresso) - ISSN 2237-1036 (on-line)

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