Short courses
MTGEW attendees will be able to choose from four short courses on different topics, taught for 4 hours by specialists in the subject
IMPORTANT: The short courses have a duration of 4 hours each and will be held simultaneously on Wednesday 25 May, in the Spanish morning. For those who register in the online mode, the recording will be offered starting at 4:00 p.m. (Spanish time) on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It will also be possible to view them later at any time for both (face-to-face registrations and online registrations).
First course
"The Rationalist Tradition of Evidence and Proof: key elements and challenges"
The course will analyse what it means and what it implies to conceive evidence and proof in law as an area of knowledge. The distinction between minimization and distribution of the risk of error in the judicial determination of the facts and the relationship between these and other non-epistemic purposes of evidence law will be examined. It will also discuss the appropriate means to encourage the investigation of the truth in the process, especially considering the challenge of facing the cognitive biases that affect the agents involved in it.
Taught by Daniela Accatino (Universidad Austral, Chile)
Daniela Accatino
Universidad Austral, Chile
Lawyer (University of Chile, 1997) and PhD in Law (University of Granada, 2006). She was a visiting researcher at the University College of London (2013). She is currently a professor of Evidence Law at the Austral University of Chile (Valdivia), where she also directs the Institute of Private Law and Law Sciences. She is part of the teaching team of the master’s degree in evidential legal resoning at the Universities of Girona and Genova and of the Editorial Committee of Quaestio Facti. International Journal on Evidential Legal Reasoning. Her main areas of research are the theory of evidence, judicial reasoning and judicial processes in transitional justice. Her recent publications include “Legal evidence theory: Are we all 'rationalists' now?” (Revus. Journal for constitutional theory and philosophy of law, 40, 20202) and “The Chilean crisis as a transitional justice moment” (Legal & Social Studies, 4, XX, 2021).
Second course
"Presumptions in the Law of Evidence"
This course examines presumptions in the law of evidence from a variety of angles. The form or structure of a presumption as an evidentiary device and its function in allocating the burden of proof and regulating factual inferences will be analyzed. We will then move on to a taxonomy of presumptions and study the dichotomy between presumptions of law vs presumptions of fact, rebuttable vs irrebuttable presumptions, and, ‘legal’ versus ‘evidential’ presumptions. Attention will be paid to the presumption of innocence as a special kind of presumption. The rationales or policy underpinnings of presumptions and the extent to which it is legitimate to shift the burden of proof to the accused via a presumption will be critically evaluated.
Taught by Ho Hock Lai (National University of Singapore, Singapore)
Coomaraswamy Professor of the Law of Evidence at the National University of Singapore. His immediate prior appointment was Amaladass Professor of Criminal Justice at the same university. He obtained his first law degree from the National University of Singapore, his postgraduate degree, the BCL, from Oxford University, and his doctorate from Cambridge University. He specializes in the law of evidence. His significant publications include A Philosophy of Evidence Law - Justice in the Search for Truth (Oxford University Press, 2008).
Third course
"Standards of proof and due process"
The course will address the role of standards of proof in evidentiary reasoning and their relationship to safeguards such as due process and duty to state reasons. The relationship of standards of proof to other rules of evidentiary decisions will also be discussed, such as the burden of proof or presumptions and, in particular, the presumption of innocence. The methodological requirements for the correct formulation of the standards or proof will be presented, as well as the eminently political character of the determination of the threshold of sufficient evidence. Finally, a series of examples will be presented to better visualize how standards of proof could be formulated.
Taught by Jordi Ferrer Beltrán (Universitat de Girona, Spain)
Jordi Ferrer Beltrán
Universitat de Girona, Spain
Professor of Legal Philosophy at the University of Girona (Spain), director of the Chair of Legal Culture and director of the Master's Degree on Evidentiary Reasoning, at the same university. He is also co-editor of Quaestio Facti, International Journal on Evidential Legal Reasoning. He has published “Las normas de competencia. Un aspecto de la dinámica jurídica” (2000), “Prueba y verdad en el derecho” (2002), “La valoración racional de la prueba” (2007), together with Jorge Luís Rodríguez, “Jerarquías normativas y dinámica de los sistemas jurídicos” (2011), “Motivación y racionalidad de la prueba” (2016), “Prueba y racionalidad de las decisiones judiciales” (2018), together with Jordi Nieva and Leandro Giannini, “Contra la carga de la prueba”, (2019) and “Prueba sin convicción. Estándares de prueba y debido proceso” (2021). He co-edited the series of three volumes of “Law, Politics, and Morality: European Perspectives” (2003, 2006 y 2007), “La laicidad desde el Derecho” (2010), “The Logic of Legal Requirements: Essays on Legal Defeasibility” (2011), “El realismo jurídico genovés” (2011), “Seguridad jurídica y democracia en Iberoamérica” (2015), “Debatiendo con Taruffo” (2016), “Seguridad jurídica, pobreza y corrupción en Iberoamérica” (2018), “Del derecho al razonamiento probatorio” (2020) and “El razonamiento probatorio en el proceso judicial. Un encuentro entre diferentes tradiciones” (2021). He has also published many articles in journals such as Rechtstheorie, Associations, Analisi e diritto, Ragion Pratica, Legal Theory, Law and Philosophy, Teoria Politica, Isonomía, Revus, Diritto e procedura civile and Cassazione penale, among others.
Fourth course
"Testimony as evidence, between psychology and law"
The testimony consists of a declaratory evidence which has long been debated in the legal field, either around its method of production or presentation, or around its validity for the purposes of the fact finding. The principles governing the trial in Italy - orality, immediacy and contradiction - according to current case law, are the best method of presentation of the evidence, and testimony is sometimes considered the “queen” among the evidence.
According to the principle of orality, the evidence presentation must be developed through the verbal communication of the thought, with the possibility of asking questions and listening to the declarant, guaranteeing the procedural dialectic. The principle of immediacy in turn guarantees contact between the judge and the (testimonial) evidence for the purposes of fact finding. That contact would guarantee the truth, according to some trend of thought. Finally, adversarial principle guarantees (and requires) the participation of the parties in the presentation of the evidence, and specifically in that of the testimonial evidence, for the purposes of a fair trial. It is considered that these three principles allow, in the best possible way, to reach the truth allowing the fact finder to assess the credibility of the declarant and the reliability of the statement.
This course will discuss the extent to which these principles are informed by the many knowledge (derived from scientific research in the fields of testimonial psychology and neuroscience) related to the thought and knowledge processes underlying a witness statement, as well as knowledge of the relationship between the practice of testimony and its validity, and of the mental processes underlying the formulation of the fact finding. These are the topics of a course that offers up-to-date knowledge and important points for reflection on the topic of the validity and assessment of the testimonial evidence.
Presented by Giuliana Mazzoni (University of Rome, Italy)
Giuliana Mazzoni
University of Rome, Italy
PhD from the University of Padova, professor of psychology from the University of Rome, La Sapienza, and professor emeritus of neuroscience/psychology, University of Hull, UK. Was a reader at Plymouth University, part-time professor at Seton Hall University (USA) and the University of Calabria (Italy). She is an internationally recognized expert for her research on human memory and for its applications in the forensic field. Her research has been funded by various international agencies. She is the author of more than 170 articles in international journals, and of some books, also in Italian and Spanish. Her work has received widespread media attention both abroad and in Italy.
Càtedra de Cultura Jurídica
Organizing entities
Marcial Pons
Promoting entitie
Diputació de Girona
Promoting entitie
Fundació UdG: Innovació i Formació
Collaborating entitie
