Personal participation and trials in absentia: a comparative constitutional law perspective

The purpose of this essay is to provide a comparative overview focusing on the attitude of some legal orders towards trials in absentia in order to determine whether the US and European constitutionalism had an impact on the framing of these principles in the various legal orders. Particularly, it is argued that, in the absence of any black-or-white distinction, the dichotomy between common law and civil law systems would not provide an appropriate perspective to capture the existence of different attitudes between the understanding of personal participation as a duty and as a right.