The defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in the Italian criminal justice system

Abstract

The criminal law standard of Beyond A Reasonable Doubt (BARD) constitutes an evidentiary and judicial rule, formulated and applied for centuries in common law jurisdictions, which was expressly stated in the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure only about fifteen years ago. Unfortunately, the concept of reasonable doubt is inherently complex and does not easily lend itself to definition or refinement. In this regard, the Author examines especially the various positions and elaborations developed by legal literature and case-law in Italy, proposing a specific interpretation of the BARD rule that enhances and completes the particular procedural connotations of the adversarial system adopted in the Italian criminal justice.