Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, Head of The City Law School, Department of Law (Academic Programmes), has a substantive new publication out, in a volume that discusses Poor Defence Lawyering in Criminal Proceedings – A Comparative View, edited by Dr Ashlee Beazley and Professor Michele Panzavolta, at Leuven, and Professor Andrew Sanders, emeritus Professor at the University of Warwick, and published as part of the ‘Routledge Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice and Procedure’ series (edited by Dr Ed Johnston, at Northampton).

‘In Western democracies suspects have rights not to be arrested, held and questioned arbitrarily; police powers are limited and reviewable in the courts; and the prosecution has to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt to secure convictions for most crimes. Prosecutors and judges are usually professional (and, where lay magistrates preside, are professionally advised) and not politically appointed. All convictions may be appealed against. For suspects and defendants, what could possibly go wrong?’, asks Professor Sanders, in his Preface.  Everything could go wrong, he then seems to quickly suggest, taking the UK Post Office scandal or the case of Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison for rape until his conviction was overturned by the UK Court of Appeal in 2023, as devastating illustrations of why unfortunately that is the case. This is why ‘conscientious, reliable, independent defence lawyers are vital to delve beneath the surface of the prosecution case and challenge its evidence’, Prof Sanders notes, in offering his prognosis.

Professor Giannoulopoulos’ chapter offers legal cosmopolitan (comparative law) analysis of the perturbing questions Andrew Sanders asks in his preface above (and those Professor Panazvolta and Dr Beazley ask in this project more broadly). It tackles ‘good’ and ‘poor’ lawyering head on, by taking the continental legal system of Greece as a case study. The concepts of ‘good’ and ‘poor’ quality criminal defence practice are examined from the dual vista of the broader role of defence lawyers in criminal proceedings in Greece and their effective participation in custodial interrogation in practice. The former vista sheds light on the centrality of criminal defence lawyers in the criminal process, from a historic, institutional, cultural and contemporary procedural perspective, which then makes obvious the extent to which ‘good’ and ‘poor’ quality criminal defence practice can influence the criminal process and its outcomes. It also allows a reflection on potential denominators of ‘good’ and ‘poor’ quality criminal defence practice: competence, experience, manoeuvrability, empathy and even prestige, reputation and charisma in this way emerge as endogenous to ‘good’ lawyering in Greece, while disconcerting examples of ‘poor’ quality criminal defence services can be seen as underpinning entire areas of procedural and institutional practice such as in relation to legal aid or the postponement of criminal trials engineered by defence lawyers.

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