Right of confrontation
The confrontation law is criminal the right of the accused to attraction and questioning of witnesses . The basis is Art. 6 III lit. d ECHR . The right of confrontation, stemming from the Anglo-American legal conception of adversarial criminal proceedings, is intended to ensure that witnesses are not only heard by the prosecuting authorities, but can also be questioned directly by the accused. According to the principle of equality of arms , the law of confrontation aims at granting the accused a right to participate in evidence at all stages of the criminal proceedings beyond the rights of question and presence enshrined in German criminal procedure law as well as the principle of immediacy , which primarily serves to ensure the reliability of evidence . Witness i. S. d. Right of confrontation is anyone whose testimony in court is used as evidence in decision-making, regardless of whether it was made in court or outside the court or by a co-accused. However, the court must respect the uninfluenced exercise of the co-defendant's right to remain silent in relation to questions raised by the defense counsel of the other defendant.
literature
- Meyer-Goßner / Schmitt, Commentary on StPO, No. 22 ff on Art. 6 ECHR
Web links
- Antje du Bois-Pedain: Article 6 Para. 3 lit. d ECHR and the unavailable witness: does the modified Lucà test point the way out of the impasse? , HRRS - online journal for highest judicial decisions on criminal law, March 2012, accessed on January 6, 2017.
- Martin Salomon: Fairness through confrontation. The right to confront questions as an element of fair criminal proceedings Rescriptum 2015/2, pp. 126–133