Original scientific paper
On the principle of immediacy in legal action de lege lata with some projections de lege ferenda
Mihajlo Dika
; Faculty of law of University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author tries to define the significance of the principle of immediacy in the realization of fundamental objectives of legal action in a historical-comparative perspective. The author points to the need to distinguish between some demands made in the name of this principle and its constitutive components (immediacy in the presentation of evidence or substantive immediacy; immediacy in court hearings; temporal immediacy in court hearings, presentation of evidence and decision making; immediacy of evidentiary instruments). The relationship between the principle of literacy and immediacy is explored, along with the principle of publicity and immediacy. The author points to specific features of immediacy in the proceedings before collegiate bodies of higher instance courts. The thesis supporting the introduction of the so-called „judicial-advisory proceedings“ is seen as an attack against the principle of immediacy. Legal consequences of the violation of the principle of immediacy are considered. In conclusion, the author stresses the pragmatic-instrumental significance of the principle of immediacy and the relativity of its function in the realization of tasks of legal action. Under the conditions of electronic communication revolution, the author points out the possibility and the need to transform the role and importance of the principle of immediacy in legal action and its relationship to other postulates of the procedure, paving the way to the dominance of the „principle of electronic literacy which will enable the realization of the „principle of electronic immediacy“, and the consequent birth of a „new law of evidence“
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
24957
URI
Publication date:
22.6.2008.
Visits: 5.786 *