Audiovisual Interrogation of Witnesses in Belgium and Germany and its Fundamental Rights Implications

Abstract Using two of the countries of the DigiRights Project as jurisdictional studies – namely, Belgium and Germany – this article will assess the audiovisual interrogation of (particularly, vulnerable) witnesses as a case study for digitalised criminal proceedings, and so the ideas of virtual and remote criminal justice. The article begins with an assessment of the relevant provisions of Belgian and German criminal procedure law, which are compared in order to determine how the interests of vulnerable witnesses (or witnesses prevented from appearing), and the procedural or fundamental rights of the accused and their defence can be balanced in both jurisdictions in the area of audiovisual questioning of witnesses. Based on a European and transversal analysis, this contribution aims to draw general supranational conclusions regarding the digitalization of criminal proceedings, with an eye to thereafter proffering recommendations for how such digitalisation (and so, therein, remoteness) can be deemed acceptable in the context under discussion.