The civil-law main hearing

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 480.

The Anglo-American jury trial

The trial or main hearing

The climactic and decisive part of an Anglo-American civil action is the trial, in which the parties present their proof in a concentrated fashion. The climactic event in a lawsuit based on European codes is the hearing before the full court.

Many of the procedural rules governing trials in civil actions have been designed to reflect the basic premise that the function of the jury is to determine the facts of the case, whereas the function of the judge is to determine the applicable law and to oversee the parties' presentation of the facts to the court. The consequences of the presence of the jury have been so pervasive that even in cases tried by a judge without a jury, the procedural rules designed to accommodate jury trials remain largely intact, with the important exception, of course, that the judge will determine both the facts and the law.

In civil-law countries the hearing before the full court is the essential part of a civil action. At that hearing, counsel for both sides present argument as to the law and the facts of the case and submit documentary evidence. The hearing serves several purposes: it informs the court of the contentions of the parties, both legal and factual; it narrows the issues that may have been raised by the original pleadings; and it leads to the submission of at least one type of evidence, namely, documentary evidence. The extent of proof presentation and the narrowing of issues vary from country to country.