The Early Career Scholars’ Day 2018 and the 10th Conference on the Future of Adversarial and Inquisitorial Systems will be taking place on 25 April 2018 at the Faculty of Law, University of Basel. The theme of the conference is "Accountability of Criminal Justice Systems: Formation, Application and Enforcement of Law in Changing Circumstances".

Accountability in criminal justice has many dimensions: We expect accurate outcomes, procedural fairness, protections of civil liberties, and respectful treatment of all participants in the criminal justice system to the extent possible. Traditionally, we have accorded great power and influence to expert practitioners in the system − be they police, judges, prosecutors, or defense counsel. As victims, defendants and ordinary citizens increase their ability to tell their stories in new ways, their concerns have changed the way that scholars and politicians think about what it means to be accountable. Whether we start with an inquisitorial or adversarial model, increased transparency in the digital age has led to a corresponding increase in pressure on all of the participants in the system. Competing priorities inevitably lead to tradeoffs between incommensurable interests. Maintaining a legitimate system requires thoughtful engagement to manage potential conflicts, and to rebalance the approaches the participants adopt in light of new information.

In this session, we will hear presentations from early-career scholars writing about accountability in criminal justice from comparative and national law perspectives. We welcome authors interested in critiquing the system from a descriptive or normative perspective, or in proposing new methods, approaches or perspectives that will further the conversation on defining and achieving accountability in criminal justice.

The application should encompass:

− maximum 5 pages of the research subject you would like to present

− CV with full contact details

Application deadline: 15 February 2018

Applications should be sent to the conference coordinator, Professor Sabine Gless, to the following address: sabine.gless@unibas.ch. The selected students will give a presentation of their work in front of their peers. Then, discussants will include the members of the 10th Conference on the Future of the Adversarial and Inquisitorial Systems, among them Prof Jackie Hodgson (University of Warwick), Prof Richard Myers (University of North-Carolina at Chapel Hill), Prof Michele Caianiello (University of Bologna), Prof Sabine Gless (University of Basel). The floor will be open to debates. Travel expenses linked to the participation at the Ph.D. seminar, unfortunately, cannot be covered.

A 12-year stand-off came to an end this week when a British compromise offer to extend the franchise in very limited circumstances was accepted by the Council of Europe. Warwick Law School Professor Jacqueline Hodgson has written why this issue has been so controversial and why has it taken the UK 12 years to finally fall into line. Further details here.

Professor Jackie Hodgson spoke live on BBC Radio 4 on November 2, 2017, about the recent events in Catalonia. Professor Hodgson was asked by BBC Radio 4’s Eddie Mair on the PM news program whether Spain could issue a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) to secure the return of Carles Puigdemont in order to appear before the Spanish court. Professor Hodgson explained that whilst this was a politically charged situation, this would not prevent the extradition of Señor Puigdemont and colleagues, provided that the Spanish legal authorities could demonstrate their intention to bring criminal charges.

Professor Hodgson made a second radio appearance on November 4, 2017, when she was interviewed on the BBC World Service’s Newshour during which she explained the nature of the European Arrest Warrant and the strong grounds that would be required in order to resist its execution.

On November 03, 2017, Warwick's Criminal Justice Centre hosted a screening of the documentary film ‘Fallout’ which examines the stories of four different people who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for serious offenses. The film was followed by a panel discussion involving Paddy Hill and Robert Brown, both wrongfully convicted of murder and who spent, respectively, 16 and 25 years in prison. The film's director Mark McLoughlin, as well as CJC researcher Dr. Juliet Horne and Jodie Blackstock from JUSTICE, spoke at the event. The discussions shed much-needed light on the often traumatic afterlife of those freed from prison following the admission of a miscarriage of justice.