EIRP Proceedings, Vol 2 (2007)

Abstract

Once the evidence is administered, the court has to judge it in order to decide whether to sentence the
defendant who was taken legal action against, for committing a crime set out in criminal law.
Approaching the issue of evidence judgment in the criminal trial in the light of the provisions of other
states’ criminal legislations requires a comparative analysis of the two legal systems: Roman-German and the
common law system. Does this comparative approach really have a basis?
The leading rule in the Roman-German system is the rejection of legal evidence (which implies conviction if
there is evidence) and acknowledgement of the evidence freedom system: the judge is free to judge the evidence,
being allowed to pass the sentence when he is convinced that the defendant is guilty, after examining all the
administered evidence.
The common law criminal doctrine presents this issue differently: the task of presenting the evidence is
opposed to the task of proving the guilt with evidence. The former concept corresponds to what is called the
evidence task (onus probandi) in continental Europe and the latter concept – to the degree or amount of
evidence that the law requires the plaintiff.