Lorena Bachmaier Winter – författare

The book provides an overview of the right to counsel and the attorney-client privilege in the following 12 jurisdictions: China, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and USA.

The right to counsel is a fundamental right providing the accused access to justice in criminal proceedings. Lawyers can only practice their profession properly if clients have complete trust in their lawyer’s discretion. This trust is safeguarded by the attorney-client privilege, which is an indispensable part of every constitutional state and one of the most important professional duties of a lawyer. It is of particular importance in criminal proceedings regarding the protection of the confidentiality of lawyer-client communications in the different procedural stages, coercive measures as well as the various duties and interests in play. However, the communications protected by attorney-client privilege vary greatly from country to country. With regard to criminal investigations in an increasingly globalised world, where sophisticated tools enable broad digital investigations, there is an urgent need to clarify how this fundamental right is protected at both the national and supranational level.

Each chapter explores the regulations, practices and recent developments in each jurisdiction and was written by highly qualified experts in the legal field – from academia and practice alike. It identifies possible solutions and best practices, providing valuable insights for practitioners and law-making bodies alike regarding the actual protection (or lack thereof) of lawyer-client confidentiality in the pretrial and trial stage of criminal proceedings.

This book explores the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), the creation of which was approved in the Regulation adopted by the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council on 12 October 2017. 

The EPPO will be an independent European prosecution office tasked with investigating and prosecuting those crimes defined in the recently adopted Regulation 2017/1371 on combating fraud against the Union’s financial interests by means of criminal law. As such, it will be a new actor on the EU landscape, governed by the principle of loyal cooperation with the national prosecuting authorities.

This work clarifies some of the challenges that member states will have to face when dealing with a supranational prosecution authority. In addition, it provides guidelines on how to implement the present Regulation while respecting the fundamental rights of defendants in criminal proceedings.

The book is of special interest in so far as the analysis and perspectiveof academics is completed with the contributions of legal experts who have either been involved in the negotiations to establish the European public prosecutor or will be closely linked, as public prosecutors, to the functioning of the future European public prosecutor’s office.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this book provides a practical analysis of criminal law in Spain. An introduction presents the necessary background information about the framework and sources of the criminal justice system, and then proceeds to a detailed examination of the grounds for criminal liability, the justification of criminal offences, the defences that diminish or excuse criminal liability, the classification of criminal offences, and the sanctions system.

Coverage of criminal procedure focuses on the organization of investigations, pre-trial proceedings, trial stage, and legal remedies. A final part describes the execution of sentences and orders, the prison system, and the extinction of custodial sanctions or sentences.

Its succinct yet scholarly nature, as well as the practical quality of the information it provides, make this book a valuable resource for criminal lawyers, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and criminal court judges handling cases connected with Spain. Academics and researchers, as well as the various international organizations in the field, will welcome this very useful guide, and will appreciate its value in the study of comparative criminal law.