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Responsibilities of Judges and Advocates in Civil and Common Law: Some Lingering Misconceptions Concerning Civil Lawsuits
Hazard, Geoffrey Dondi, Angelo
Hazard, Geoffrey
Dondi, Angelo
Abstract
In a period in which an event as interesting and important as the formulation of Principles and Rules of Transnational Civil Procedure by the American Law Institute and the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) is sternly advancing to accommodate basic procedural concepts for both the civil and common law systems, a central problem faced in such conciliation seems to be that of clarifying the actual roles and responsibilities of judges and lawyers in the conduct of a civil dispute. To do so will essentially mean scrutinizing the value and validity of settled conceptions of the inherent features of civil and common law systems, including the notion that these systems are basically opposite each other. In other words, we will attempt to evaluate the correctness and reliability of this assertion, as well as to the unavoidable opposition it incurs.