This material was first published by Sweet and Maxwell Limited in Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos 'A Review of Renaud Colson’s and Stewart Field’s ‘The Transformation of Criminal Justice: Comparing France with England and Wales', Criminal Law Review, 10, pp. 863-867 and is reproduced by agreement with the publishers.This book opens with forewords by two of the most exceptional contemporary legal minds in the English and French legal systems: Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the first president of the UK Supreme Court, and Robert Badinter, former president of the Conseil constitutionnel, eminent scholar and politician known for his tireless contributions on criminal justice and human rights issues. Lord Phillips finds that “this is an erudite comparative study of recent reforms to the English and French criminal justice systems”, which shows how “reforms have brought the two systems closer together”, thus being “of interest to those who have been brought up to consider the two systems as dissimilar as chalk and cheese” (p.7)

Giannoulopoulos, D

English

Brunel University Research Archive

Book ReviewThe Transformation of Criminal Justice: Comparing Francewith England and Wales; Les transformations de la justicepénale: une comparaison franco-anglaise, by Renaud Colson andStewart Field, (Paris: L’Harmattan, Bibliothèques de droit, 2011),189pp., paperback, €18, ISBN: 978-2-296-56154-0.This book opens with forewords by two of the most exceptional contemporarylegal minds in the English and French legal systems: Lord Phillips of WorthMatravers, the first president of the UK Supreme Court, and Robert Badinter,former president of the Conseil constitutionnel, eminent scholar and politicianknown for his tireless contributions on criminal justice and human rights issues.Lord Phillips finds that “this is an erudite comparative study of recent reforms tothe English and French criminal justice systems”, which shows how “reforms havebrought the two systems closer together”, thus being “of interest to those who havebeen brought up to consider the two systems as dissimilar as chalk and cheese”(p.7). This is echoed by Badinter, who considers this book a “brilliantdemonstration” of comparative law’s pertinence to jurists—legal scholars,practitioners as well as the legislator—who can find in it“a particularly rich source of reflection, encouraging them to take a new lookat the legal system within which they are evolving, sometimes even leadingthem to rethink some of its elements”(p.11)Badinter evidently finds the book a source of reflection himself, as he concludeshis foreword by noting that, in the light of the “talented” comparative study byColson and Field, “the reform of French criminal procedure now appears to bemore unavoidable than ever before” (p.13).The views of this book reviewer perfectly mirror the comments of these mostdistinguished jurists. Colson’s and Field’s work is an excellent illustration of afruitful transnational dialogue between two criminal justice scholars whodemonstrate a deep understanding not only of their own legal system but also ofthe foreign legal system that is their comparative point of reference, and whoclearly perceive that “their” criminal justice systems do not evolve in a vacuum,but as a result of a tangled web of conflicting influences manifesting themselvesat multiple levels (national, transnational and international law influences). Byundertaking such dialogue, the authors offer national law experts in both countriesa priceless opportunity to see how developments in their legal systems can nolonger be seen as purely local phenomena, and how different legal systems areincreasingly faced with similar problems to which they increasingly offer similarsolutions, irrespective of whether they belong to the common law or civil lawtraditions. The authors’ declared objectives were to undertake a comparison thatwould help them search for a more refined understanding of their own legal systemsand contribute to contemporary debates about rapprochement and transformationin national law (p.19). They achieve these objectives to a considerable degree.863[2013] Crim. L.R., Issue 10 © 2013 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK LimitedInterestingly, the book is just over 70 pages long, perhaps resembling a longUS law review-style. Brevity is both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand,it results in various topics being examined in a cursory manner. For example, someof the legislative reforms that form the backbone of the authors’ analysis are notdiscussed in detail. References to the institutional, political and cultural backgroundsagainst which such reforms have materialised merited further attention as well.Then again, avoiding the often excruciating—for the national law expert atleast—analysis of each and every aspect of legislative reform in foreign legalsystems automatically makes this book a much more accessible resource ofcomparative law. From this point of view, in addition to stimulating scholarlyreflection, the book will have much appeal to criminal justice practitioners andwill be useful reading for students (especially postgraduate) in law schools in bothEnglish speaking and francophone parts of the world; the book is “happily availablein both languages” anyway, a quality that Lord Phillips underlines in his foreword(p.9). It is important to add that it is not just greater accessibility that the authorshave achieved in this way; the book is also a tool of legal translation indispensableto students and scholars engaged with the comparison of rules, institutions andpractices central to the English and French criminal justice systems as well as thecommon law and civil law traditions more generally.The many qualities of the book from a methodological and practical point ofview are matched by the sophistication of its thesis. The authors start their analysisby taking stock of rapid criminal justice transformations in common law and civillaw systems, as a result of“influences as diverse as international and European human rights law, thegrowth of ‘penal populism’ in public debate and the development of newmanagerial models for the administration of criminal justice”(p.18)They then argue that the English and French criminal justice systems have beenparticularly exposed to these influences, and they identify three majortransformations caused by them: (a) the introduction of significant proceduralguarantees, which they link with the growing emphasis on procedural fairness; (b)the rise of crime control policies, which they see as the response to politicallygenerated anxieties about security and effective deterrence; and (c) other proceduralconsequences affecting the nature and orientation of the criminal justice system,which they consider side effects of the political project of the modernisation oflegal institutions. The book is divided into three parts that reflect these themes.Each part is divided into two chapters, following a cause-and-effect dichotomouspattern, in accordance with the omnipresent (in France) plan cartésien; Ch.1 ineach part explores influences, then Ch.2 focuses on transformations. In this way,the logic of the argument is particularly easy to follow.More precisely, in Ch.1 (of Pt I) the authors take as their starting point theincreasing emphasis on procedural fairness on both sides of the Channel. Thisphenomenon is traced to the incessant influence of international legalinstruments—notably the authority of the European Convention on Human Rights(ECHR)—on the one hand, and to autonomous due process orientated nationaltrends on the other. A potential problem with this distinction is that it may be seenas suggesting that national trends are created in isolation from international law864 Criminal Law Review[2013] Crim. L.R., Issue 10 © 2013 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK Limitedinfluences, which goes in the opposite direction of the overall argument that theauthors are making in this book. A more significant criticism relates to the factthat international influences are presented merely as having been in synergy withautonomous national trends in reinforcing the centrality of procedural fairness,whichmay cause the reader to lose sight of situations where crime control orientatednational trends have been in conflict with due process orientated internationalinfluences. In relation to Strasbourg’s influence more particularly, perhaps moreattention could have been paid to situations where the court’s internationalism hasbeen met with local resistance, a theme which has recently obtained muchprominence in both the United Kingdom and France, for example in the contextof the debate on prisoners’ rights, hearsay and the right to custodial legal assistance.In Ch.2, the authors explore the effect of the influences and trends previouslydescribed, accurately pinpointing new procedural rights and institutionaltransformations triggered by them. Of particular interest here is the observationthat the recognition of new procedural rights has led to qualifications of thetraditionally inquisitorial and adversarial character of French and English criminalprocess respectively. This can offer an insight into one of the main theses of thebook, the coming together of the English and French criminal process as a resultof recent reforms. Perhaps this rapprochement is possible because the English andFrench criminal justice systems have started to qualify some of the antitheticalprocedural principles (adversarial and inquisitorial) they had traditionally adopted,endorsing instead the ECHR inspired model that can reach across the commonlaw and civil law traditions, as a result of the common human rights standards thatunderpin this model (see generally J. Jackson, “Transnational Faces of Justice:Two Attempts to Build Common Standards Beyond National Boundaries” in J.Jackson, M. Langer and P. Tillers, Crime, Procedure and Evidence in aComparative and International Context — Essays in Honour of Professor MirjanDamaška (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008), p.221).In Pt II, the authors portray crime control as the second source of moderntransformations of English and French criminal justice, placing emphasis on thetransition from “humanist” to more “repressive approaches to the development ofcriminal policy” dominating reform circles on both sides of the Channel (p.50).Here the authors describe how Margaret Thatcher’s law and order policy ran inparallel with the adoption of a “tough on crime” policy by the political right inFrance—as a result, in both cases, of growing feelings of insecurity fed by themass media. Subsequently, in the 1990s, the Labour Party under Tony Blair andthe French Socialist Party enthusiastically took up the (police) baton of crimecontrol, mindful of the risk of “losing the battle for public opinion on the terrainof security” (p.51). The authors then illustrate how all this led to the rise of penalpopulism and a “legislative hyperinflation” that helped the state expand itsprocedural arsenal, notably through the reinforcement of police powers and theintroduction of increasingly simplified procedures and negotiated outcomes. Theanalysis leads to incisive questions, for example about how the reinforcement ofpolice powers was accommodated by the adversarial principle in England andWales, or about the logic of the injection of negotiated justice into the inquisitoriallyrooted system of France. The reader once again has the chance to reflect on therelevance of the adversarial and inquisitorial principles for modern criminal justiceBook Review 865[2013] Crim. L.R., Issue 10 © 2013 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK Limitedreform in common law and civil law systems, which is a valuable contribution tocurrent debates. In general, Pt II offers a useful review of crime control policiesleading to radical transformations of criminal justice in France and England andWales.In the final chapter, the authors turn their attention to the political project ofstate modernisation. Here one may observe with interest how state modernisationhasmanifested itself in different ways in the United Kingdom and France, especiallyfrom the point of view of those driving the project forward. In the United Kingdomit was “the neo-liberal wing of the Conservative Party” that pushed for reform,conceiving modernisation as “something aimed at Whitehall and [the] statebureaucracy” (p.67), whereas in France it was the administrative elites themselveswho acted as the driving force, after close consultation with the courts and thelegal profession (p.68). Despite these significant differences, state modernisationmeant pretty much the same thing in both the United Kingdom and France; theinjection of a managerial logic of cost optimisation and consumer satisfaction,leading to “the quantification of criminal justice performance” and “a culture ofresults” (p.71). Now, this new managerial ethic has had important consequencesfor English and French criminal procedure (the cause and effect dyad that pervadesthe book is present here as well). For example, the need for criminal justiceinstitutions to satisfy their customers (“consumerism”) has put the accent onopenness and accessibility of legal institutions, and, more specifically, theimprovement of the position of the victim in the criminal process, leading to reformsof the law of evidence and procedure, such as “vulnerable witnesses” and “hearsay”reforms in England and Wales (p.75) or the introduction in France of a judge withthe specific mission to look after the rights of victims (le juge délégué aux victimes)(p.76). A focus on “efficiency” is the second illustration the authors give ofmanagerialism’s impact on the criminal justice system. Their analysis concentrateson how “the search for efficiency can lead to a coming together of the [French andEnglish] legal traditions” (p.80); the efficiency drive simultaneously pushes Franceand England and Wales away from traditional inquisitorial and adversarialassumptions respectively. The increasing powers of Crown Prosecutors in Englandand Wales and the introduction of a process of guilty-plea in France are given ascharacteristic examples. These are useful observations of movements within theEnglish and French legal systems away from criminal justice principles inherentto them.In their conclusions, the authors explain that it is as a result of such simultaneousmovements that systematic differences in English and French criminal justice arebeginning to lose their explanatory force, though they rightly qualify thisobservation by noting that convergence is not happening in the sense of these legalsystems becoming indistinguishable, and that English and French criminalprocedures are likely to retain important differences (pp.84–85). In the light ofthese conclusions, one might be tempted to argue that by insistently looking forconvergence across traditionally dissimilar systems, there is always the risk oflosing sight of the forest for the trees; by placing the emphasis on the rapprochementof specific rules and institutions, one might easily ignore systemic divergence.However, as the authors’ qualifications to the identified rapprochement clearlydemonstrate, this is a risk that these authors have skilfully avoided. Even more866 Criminal Law Review[2013] Crim. L.R., Issue 10 © 2013 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK Limitedintriguing is the concluding observation that these modern transformations ofEnglish and French criminal justice are driven by a variety of contradictoryfactors—for example the pursuit of procedural fairness that is diametricallyopposed to crime control and managerialism—hence the difficulty in interpretingthe transformations caused by these factors. Here the authors’ attemptedinterpretation will stimulate thought among comparative criminal justice scholars;“the management of fear and uncertainty” and “the neutralisation of risk” arelocated as the common denominators of the transformations observed. “Anxiety”and “social distrust”, as prominent characteristics of modern French and Britishsocieties, underpin these prima facie contradictory transformational forces, whichare thus brought together in a coherent ideological framework (p.86). Equallyintriguing is the authors’ observation that these simultaneous transformations ofcriminal justice signal “a changing relationship with tradition” (p.83). The authorsnote that the “contemporary world rejects continuity” and that “the role of the pastin law is changing” and, in the words of Greek-French philosopher CorneliusCastoriadis, describemodern shifts of criminal justice policy in England and Franceas a “neutralisation of the past” (p.84), offering a useful contrast to analyses oflegal nationalism, isolationism and local resistance as conservative forces shapinglaw reform (themes developed in D. Giannoulopoulos, “Custodial Legal Assistanceand Notification of the Right to Silence in France: Legal Cosmopolitanism andLocal Resistance” (2013) 24(3) Criminal Law Forum 291).All in all, this is a well-researched and accessibly written book that will stronglyappeal to comparative criminal justice experts on both sides of the Channel.Notwithstanding its short length, the bookmakes insightful contributions to debateson the convergence of the common law and civil law systems and the role of legaltradition, and opens up new possibilities for criminal justice reform.D. Giannoulopoulos*Brunel Law School* I am very grateful to Paul Roberts for his comments on an earlier draft.Book Review 867[2013] Crim. L.R., Issue 10 © 2013 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK Limited

A Review of Renaud Colson’s and Stewart Field’s ‘The Transformation of Criminal Justice: Comparing France with England and Wales’

This material was first published by Sweet and Maxwell Limited in Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos 'A Review of Renaud Colson’s and Stewart Field’s ‘The Transformation of Criminal Justice: Comparing France with England and Wales', Criminal Law Review, 10, pp. 863-867 and is reproduced by agreement with the publishers

Giannoulopoulos, Dimitrios

Goldsmiths Research Online

Giannoulopoulos, Dimitrios. 2013. A Review of Renaud Colson’s and Stewart Field’s ‘The Trans-formation of Criminal Justice: Comparing France with England and Wales’. Criminal Law Review,2013(10), pp. 863-867. ISSN 0011-135X [Article]http://research.gold.ac.uk/26081/The version presented here may differ from the published, performed or presented work. Pleasego to the persistent GRO record above for more information.If you believe that any material held in the repository infringes copyright law, please contactthe Repository Team at Goldsmiths, University of London via the following email address:gro@gold.ac.uk.The item will be removed from the repository while any claim is being investigated. Formore information, please contact the GRO team: gro@gold.ac.ukBook ReviewThe Transformation of Criminal Justice: Comparing Francewith England and Wales; Les transformations de la justicepénale: une comparaison franco-anglaise, by Renaud Colson andStewart Field, (Paris: L’Harmattan, Bibliothèques de droit, 2011),189pp., paperback, €18, ISBN: 978-2-296-56154-0.This book opens with forewords by two of the most exceptional contemporarylegal minds in the English and French legal systems: Lord Phillips of WorthMatravers, the first president of the UK Supreme Court, and Robert Badinter,former president of the Conseil constitutionnel, eminent scholar and politicianknown for his tireless contributions on criminal justice and human rights issues.Lord Phillips finds that “this is an erudite comparative study of recent reforms tothe English and French criminal justice systems”, which shows how “reforms havebrought the two systems closer together”, thus being “of interest to those who havebeen brought up to consider the two systems as dissimilar as chalk and cheese”(p.7). This is echoed by Badinter, who considers this book a “brilliantdemonstration” of comparative law’s pertinence to jurists—legal scholars,practitioners as well as the legislator—who can find in it“a particularly rich source of reflection, encouraging them to take a new lookat the legal system within which they are evolving, sometimes even leadingthem to rethink some of its elements”(p.11)Badinter evidently finds the book a source of reflection himself, as he concludeshis foreword by noting that, in the light of the “talented” comparative study byColson and Field, “the reform of French criminal procedure now appears to bemore unavoidable than ever before” (p.13).The views of this book reviewer perfectly mirror the comments of these mostdistinguished jurists. Colson’s and Field’s work is an excellent illustration of afruitful transnational dialogue between two criminal justice scholars whodemonstrate a deep understanding not only of their own legal system but also ofthe foreign legal system that is their comparative point of reference, and whoclearly perceive that “their” criminal justice systems do not evolve in a vacuum,but as a result of a tangled web of conflicting influences manifesting themselvesat multiple levels (national, transnational and international law influences). Byundertaking such dialogue, the authors offer national law experts in both countriesa priceless opportunity to see how developments in their legal systems can nolonger be seen as purely local phenomena, and how different legal systems areincreasingly faced with similar problems to which they increasingly offer similarsolutions, irrespective of whether they belong to the common law or civil lawtraditions. The authors’ declared objectives were to undertake a comparison thatwould help them search for a more refined understanding of their own legal systemsand contribute to contemporary debates about rapprochement and transformationin national law (p.19). They achieve these objectives to a considerable degree.863[2013] Crim. L.R., Issue 10 © 2013 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK LimitedInterestingly, the book is just over 70 pages long, perhaps resembling a longUS law review-style. Brevity is both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand,it results in various topics being examined in a cursory manner. For example, someof the legislative reforms that form the backbone of the authors’ analysis are notdiscussed in detail. References to the institutional, political and cultural backgroundsagainst which such reforms have materialised merited further attention as well.Then again, avoiding the often excruciating—for the national law expert atleast—analysis of each and every aspect of legislative reform in foreign legalsystems automatically makes this book a much more accessible resource ofcomparative law. From this point of view, in addition to stimulating scholarlyreflection, the book will have much appeal to criminal justice practitioners andwill be useful reading for students (especially postgraduate) in law schools in bothEnglish speaking and francophone parts of the world; the book is “happily availablein both languages” anyway, a quality that Lord Phillips underlines in his foreword(p.9). It is important to add that it is not just greater accessibility that the authorshave achieved in this way; the book is also a tool of legal translation indispensableto students and scholars engaged with the comparison of rules, institutions andpractices central to the English and French criminal justice systems as well as thecommon law and civil law traditions more generally.The many qualities of the book from a methodological and practical point ofview are matched by the sophistication of its thesis. The authors start their analysisby taking stock of rapid criminal justice transformations in common law and civillaw systems, as a result of“influences as diverse as international and European human rights law, thegrowth of ‘penal populism’ in public debate and the development of newmanagerial models for the administration of criminal justice”(p.18)They then argue that the English and French criminal justice systems have beenparticularly exposed to these influences, and they identify three majortransformations caused by them: (a) the introduction of significant proceduralguarantees, which they link with the growing emphasis on procedural fairness; (b)the rise of crime control policies, which they see as the response to politicallygenerated anxieties about security and effective deterrence; and (c) other proceduralconsequences affecting the nature and orientation of the criminal justice system,which they consider side effects of the political project of the modernisation oflegal institutions. The book is divided into three parts that reflect these themes.Each part is divided into two chapters, following a cause-and-effect dichotomouspattern, in accordance with the omnipresent (in France) plan cartésien; Ch.1 ineach part explores influences, then Ch.2 focuses on transformations. In this way,the logic of the argument is particularly easy to follow.More precisely, in Ch.1 (of Pt I) the authors take as their starting point theincreasing emphasis on procedural fairness on both sides of the Channel. Thisphenomenon is traced to the incessant influence of international legalinstruments—notably the authority of the European Convention on Human Rights(ECHR)—on the one hand, and to autonomous due process orientated nationaltrends on the other. A potential problem with this distinction is that it may be seenas suggesting that national trends are created in isolation from international law864 Criminal Law Review[2013] Crim. L.R., Issue 10 © 2013 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK Limitedinfluences, which goes in the opposite direction of the overall argument that theauthors are making in this book. A more significant criticism relates to the factthat international influences are presented merely as having been in synergy withautonomous national trends in reinforcing the centrality of procedural fairness,whichmay cause the reader to lose sight of situations where crime control orientatednational trends have been in conflict with due process orientated internationalinfluences. In relation to Strasbourg’s influence more particularly, perhaps moreattention could have been paid to situations where the court’s internationalism hasbeen met with local resistance, a theme which has recently obtained muchprominence in both the United Kingdom and France, for example in the contextof the debate on prisoners’ rights, hearsay and the right to custodial legal assistance.In Ch.2, the authors explore the effect of the influences and trends previouslydescribed, accurately pinpointing new procedural rights and institutionaltransformations triggered by them. Of particular interest here is the observationthat the recognition of new procedural rights has led to qualifications of thetraditionally inquisitorial and adversarial character of French and English criminalprocess respectively. This can offer an insight into one of the main theses of thebook, the coming together of the English and French criminal process as a resultof recent reforms. Perhaps this rapprochement is possible because the English andFrench criminal justice systems have started to qualify some of the antitheticalprocedural principles (adversarial and inquisitorial) they had traditionally adopted,endorsing instead the ECHR inspired model that can reach across the commonlaw and civil law traditions, as a result of the common human rights standards thatunderpin this model (see generally J. Jackson, “Transnational Faces of Justice:Two Attempts to Build Common Standards Beyond National Boundaries” in J.Jackson, M. Langer and P. Tillers, Crime, Procedure and Evidence in aComparative and International Context — Essays in Honour of Professor MirjanDamaška (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008), p.221).In Pt II, the authors portray crime control as the second source of moderntransformations of English and French criminal justice, placing emphasis on thetransition from “humanist” to more “repressive approaches to the development ofcriminal policy” dominating reform circles on both sides of the Channel (p.50).Here the authors describe how Margaret Thatcher’s law and order policy ran inparallel with the adoption of a “tough on crime” policy by the political right inFrance—as a result, in both cases, of growing feelings of insecurity fed by themass media. Subsequently, in the 1990s, the Labour Party under Tony Blair andthe French Socialist Party enthusiastically took up the (police) baton of crimecontrol, mindful of the risk of “losing the battle for public opinion on the terrainof security” (p.51). The authors then illustrate how all this led to the rise of penalpopulism and a “legislative hyperinflation” that helped the state expand itsprocedural arsenal, notably through the reinforcement of police powers and theintroduction of increasingly simplified procedures and negotiated outcomes. Theanalysis leads to incisive questions, for example about how the reinforcement ofpolice powers was accommodated by the adversarial principle in England andWales, or about the logic of the injection of negotiated justice into the inquisitoriallyrooted system of France. The reader once again has the chance to reflect on therelevance of the adversarial and inquisitorial principles for modern criminal justiceBook Review 865[2013] Crim. L.R., Issue 10 © 2013 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK Limitedreform in common law and civil law systems, which is a valuable contribution tocurrent debates. In general, Pt II offers a useful review of crime control policiesleading to radical transformations of criminal justice in France and England andWales.In the final chapter, the authors turn their attention to the political project ofstate modernisation. Here one may observe with interest how state modernisationhasmanifested itself in different ways in the United Kingdom and France, especiallyfrom the point of view of those driving the project forward. In the United Kingdomit was “the neo-liberal wing of the Conservative Party” that pushed for reform,conceiving modernisation as “something aimed at Whitehall and [the] statebureaucracy” (p.67), whereas in France it was the administrative elites themselveswho acted as the driving force, after close consultation with the courts and thelegal profession (p.68). Despite these significant differences, state modernisationmeant pretty much the same thing in both the United Kingdom and France; theinjection of a managerial logic of cost optimisation and consumer satisfaction,leading to “the quantification of criminal justice performance” and “a culture ofresults” (p.71). Now, this new managerial ethic has had important consequencesfor English and French criminal procedure (the cause and effect dyad that pervadesthe book is present here as well). For example, the need for criminal justiceinstitutions to satisfy their customers (“consumerism”) has put the accent onopenness and accessibility of legal institutions, and, more specifically, theimprovement of the position of the victim in the criminal process, leading to reformsof the law of evidence and procedure, such as “vulnerable witnesses” and “hearsay”reforms in England and Wales (p.75) or the introduction in France of a judge withthe specific mission to look after the rights of victims (le juge délégué aux victimes)(p.76). A focus on “efficiency” is the second illustration the authors give ofmanagerialism’s impact on the criminal justice system. Their analysis concentrateson how “the search for efficiency can lead to a coming together of the [French andEnglish] legal traditions” (p.80); the efficiency drive simultaneously pushes Franceand England and Wales away from traditional inquisitorial and adversarialassumptions respectively. The increasing powers of Crown Prosecutors in Englandand Wales and the introduction of a process of guilty-plea in France are given ascharacteristic examples. These are useful observations of movements within theEnglish and French legal systems away from criminal justice principles inherentto them.In their conclusions, the authors explain that it is as a result of such simultaneousmovements that systematic differences in English and French criminal justice arebeginning to lose their explanatory force, though they rightly qualify thisobservation by noting that convergence is not happening in the sense of these legalsystems becoming indistinguishable, and that English and French criminalprocedures are likely to retain important differences (pp.84–85). In the light ofthese conclusions, one might be tempted to argue that by insistently looking forconvergence across traditionally dissimilar systems, there is always the risk oflosing sight of the forest for the trees; by placing the emphasis on the rapprochementof specific rules and institutions, one might easily ignore systemic divergence.However, as the authors’ qualifications to the identified rapprochement clearlydemonstrate, this is a risk that these authors have skilfully avoided. Even more866 Criminal Law Review[2013] Crim. L.R., Issue 10 © 2013 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK Limitedintriguing is the concluding observation that these modern transformations ofEnglish and French criminal justice are driven by a variety of contradictoryfactors—for example the pursuit of procedural fairness that is diametricallyopposed to crime control and managerialism—hence the difficulty in interpretingthe transformations caused by these factors. Here the authors’ attemptedinterpretation will stimulate thought among comparative criminal justice scholars;“the management of fear and uncertainty” and “the neutralisation of risk” arelocated as the common denominators of the transformations observed. “Anxiety”and “social distrust”, as prominent characteristics of modern French and Britishsocieties, underpin these prima facie contradictory transformational forces, whichare thus brought together in a coherent ideological framework (p.86). Equallyintriguing is the authors’ observation that these simultaneous transformations ofcriminal justice signal “a changing relationship with tradition” (p.83). The authorsnote that the “contemporary world rejects continuity” and that “the role of the pastin law is changing” and, in the words of Greek-French philosopher CorneliusCastoriadis, describemodern shifts of criminal justice policy in England and Franceas a “neutralisation of the past” (p.84), offering a useful contrast to analyses oflegal nationalism, isolationism and local resistance as conservative forces shapinglaw reform (themes developed in D. Giannoulopoulos, “Custodial Legal Assistanceand Notification of the Right to Silence in France: Legal Cosmopolitanism andLocal Resistance” (2013) 24(3) Criminal Law Forum 291).All in all, this is a well-researched and accessibly written book that will stronglyappeal to comparative criminal justice experts on both sides of the Channel.Notwithstanding its short length, the bookmakes insightful contributions to debateson the convergence of the common law and civil law systems and the role of legaltradition, and opens up new possibilities for criminal justice reform.D. Giannoulopoulos*Brunel Law School* I am very grateful to Paul Roberts for his comments on an earlier draft.Book Review 867[2013] Crim. L.R., Issue 10 © 2013 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK Limited

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A Review of Renaud Colson’s and Stewart Field’s ‘The Transformation of Criminal Justice: Comparing France with England and Wales’

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