Centre for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice

Comparative Criminal Judgments Project

Project Lead

Professor Michael Bohlander

Project Description

This practice-facing, decolonisation-minded and best-practice sharing project will create a valuable resource of criminal judgments, drafted by experts on criminal law and procedure from a number of jurisdictions. A comprehensive factual case scenario will form the basis of the judgments, which will be based on the law and practice of each jurisdiction, written in English, but in the style of the relevant court in each jurisdiction.

The project provides a hands-on approach to legal issues, demonstrating different drafting styles across jurisdictions and providing a valuable reference for practical understanding of different judicial cultures. It contributes to contemporary efforts to give a voice to jurisdictions which are not commonly heard on the global scene and could also be used in judicial training.

The Scenario

You can read the scenario here.

Further guidance on how to draft a judgment is available here.

Project Participants

Albania: Romina Beqiri
Argentina: Daniela Part, María Eugenia Sagasta, Glenda de la Cruz, Octavia Botalla, Gonzalo Guerrero and Javier Augusto De Luca
Brazil: Paulo de Oliveira Segundo 
Bulgaria: Tatiana Batchvarova
Cambodia: Bora Meas
Chile: Carlos del Río Ferretti
China: Liling Yue
Croatia: Nedzad Smailagic
Egypt: Adel Maged
England & Wales: HHJ Penelope Moreland and Natalie Wortley
Estonia: Andres Parmas
France: Aude Brejon
Germany: Michael Bohlander
Greece: Chara Chioni-Chotouman
Hungary: Zsanett Fantoly and András Lichtenstein
India: Suman Dash Bhattasmishra
Iran: Mohammad M. Hedayati-Kakhki
Italy: Antonio Balsamo; Giovanni Chiarini
Netherlands: Laura Peters and Jacco Janssen
Poland: Jarek Zagrodnik
South Africa: Jamil Mujuzi
South Korea: Kyoungsic Min
Spain: Demelsa Benito Sánchez
Turkey: Rahime Erbaş and Erdem Külçür
Uruguay: Pablo Galain and Ana Maria Guzman
Vietnam: Dang Minh Chau and Chau Thanh Nam

Call for Participants

Please contact Professor Michael Bohlander if you would like to discuss the possibility of contributing a criminal judgment from a jurisdiction not yet represented in the list above.

Language Editing

Please note that it is the responsibility of the contributors to arrange for an English language revision of their judgments where English is not the official language of their jurisdiction, ideally by a legally trained English native speaker.