Constitutional And Universal Culture Administer A Distinct...

Liberal constitutional and universal culture administer a distinct picture of the litigation system. The two tell us that litigation centralizes around the courtroom, and that, in the Australian court system, along with the United Kingdom and United States, trials are regularly structured on an adversarial model. The Adversarial trial assigns particular and separate functions to the participants in the trial, especially the judge, the parties and the lawyers. The conclusion is that, when each party accomplish his or her designated function, then fair and impartial decisions will be achieved. In the structure of a trial which we have developed in this country, the judge determines the points at matter raised by the parties, but does not†¦show more content†¦The concept of this is that it is the judge’s duty to maintain the equilibrium of the trial and between the parties. Although I strongly believe that our law system is exceedingly fair, there are circumstances in which a fair trial is difficult to achieve, for example when one of the parties represents themselves in court such as in the case ‘Dietrich v R’. This causes problems, due to the fact that, in the majority of cases, an accused who decides to go to court unrepresented is highly disadvantaged. This is be cause, in general, the accused has inadequate awareness of the legal system and lack the expertise and skill to deal with their case in the same way a lawyer would be able to. In circumstances like these, a judge is prompted to lead the accused through the trial in order to ensure that an appropriate defence is given to the jury. This can cause serious problems within the courtroom for many reasons. Firstly, by the judge lending a ‘helping hand’ to the unrepresented, this provides an unfair advantage. Secondly, a trial judge and a defence attorney have two extremely contrasting roles and any attempt by a trial judge to execute an attorney’s role will only result in problems being caused. It is usually acknowledged that a person has the right to self representation in civil or criminal affairs. Legal professionals have a persuasive ability over the depiction of defendants in court. Each litigant is responsible for commencing and