File Display in Greek, American and British Legal Systems. A Compared Approach to The Procedural Side of The Concept

Abstract

The current piece of work aims at offering an overview to file display in Greek Civil Law, as an independent tool within the field of supporting evidence, which somehow helps opposite parties in civil proceedings better their evidence, under reciprocity requirements regarding the exchange (handing out) of information. It includes a brief analysis of its legal frame in order to prove its ability as an efficient way to improve the media imbalance between the parties typical of civil proceedings which is sometimes just over the top. Nevertheless, the foundations of Greek Civil Law, mainly dominated by the principle of Law, even if it exceeds at empowering the court tackle, it welcomes a relatively limited margin toward public intervention in this field. Within this context, one of the main issues which arises consists of keeping the britle balance existing between the urgent need to fulfil evidence void —which is incongruous with doctrine trends aiming at promoting findings of evidence truth in civil proceedings— and the respect to the principle of law and party contribution assessment, which infringe on the parties the burden to have access to file evidence. From then on, this piece of work points out the main features of such institution within the legal frame of some countries within common law systems. The main points to identify and for evidence gathering at the beginning of the proceedings under UK and US systems, particularly through file display, let us conclude that, in spite of a remarkable promotion of alignment between legal traditions experienced in the last decades, the main reason to distinguish them stays in the various legal mindsets, which also have an impact on the different way in which litigation is approached.