Impartiality of the oral court in crime: In quest for guarantee

Abstract

Controlling judicial indifference or the judge’s prejudice threat and guaranteeing adequate trust levels for defendants in the judge’s neutrality, are one of the oral procedure’s aspects that cause most difficulties for litigators. Not only with regard to the content and the reach of the court’s guaranteed impartiality, insured in the Criminal Code, but also with regard to the procedure and the opportunity to plead its transgression. In this work a subjective dimension of impartiality is outlined, and also the need of protection of neutral appearances; some incidents in forensic practices are analyzed, and preventive procedures in favor of impartiality are distinguished from those directed to the redress or the repression of its infraction, avoiding conceptual confusions that have often created argumentative errors and unsatisfactory decisions.