Online Hearings, and the Right to Effective Defence in Digitalised Trials

This paper focuses on practical and legal issues concerning online hearings in domestic and transnational criminal proceedings, where parties generally appear through videoconference or web conference. Remote attendance to the hearings, indeed, cannot be considered as equivalent to the physical one and implies risks to the right to an effective defence in criminal proceedings. This latter can be undermined if new technologies are deployed in ways that do not satisfy specific needs of suspects and defendants. Certainly, outcomes vary, mostly depending on videoconferencing techniques, parties involved, or types of procedural activities being held on the occasion that the attendance is partly or fully virtual and, above all, on the legal systems’ features. The fact-finding process may be also shaped differently under the ICTs influence; however, it is undisputed that the use of technological devices may never end up denying the fundamental values of the criminal procedure.