Submitted Abstract
Methods of judicial review, such as the right to appeal a first instance court decision, allow for the prevention or correction of miscarriages of justice in criminal matters. However, there is a growing trend in many legal systems in Europe and in the United States to limit, directly or indirectly, the possibilities of appeal, most notably by creating and relying on out-of-court settlement procedures. The proposed PhD research will analyse to what extent the possibility to limit or renounce the right to appeal may increase the risk of miscarriages of justice and thereby disrespect fair trial rights of the parties. The hypothesis is that such limitations and waivers are predominantly based on an efficiency logic and that the far-reaching cost-benefit analysis may be detrimental to the underlying rationales of the right to appeal, namely to avoid or correct miscarriages of justice. To this end, the research will encompass a comparative analysis of a selection of EU Member States as well as the federal government of the United States in order to understand what the rationales of the right to appeal are and to what extent the right to appeal can be limited and/or waived. The PhD will eventually propose a set of qualitative standards for the limitation and waiver of the right to appeal to ensure that miscarriages of justice are adequately prevented.