Judicial Control of Plea Agreements and the Right to Appeal: A Comparative Analysis of Common Law and Civil Law Models

Abstract

This article considers how courts supervise negotiated agreements in criminal proceedings, looking at five different jurisdictions: the United States, England and Wales, France, Germany, and Poland. Although every system makes use of such agreements, they have developed in very different ways and the role assigned to the trial judge is far from uniform. What appears as a common minimum is the duty to check that the plea is voluntary and lawful, yet the depth of this review varies greatly. In some countries the judge’s role is reduced almost to a formality, while in others it is linked directly to the search for truth and the proportionality of the sentence. The paper also points to the relationship between the first-instance court’s control and the scope of appellate review, as well as to the risks that follow when judicial oversight gives way to prosecutorial dominance. The overall conclusion is that the more frequently consensual mechanisms are used, the more important it becomes to keep the court in its role as a genuine safeguard of fairness rather than a mere approver of bargains.