- Also called:
- adjective law
- Key People:
- Gnaeus Flavius
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.