Can lawyers ask judges questions? I came across a courtroom exchange on twitter Adv: I ask this question. J. CT Ravikumar: Who are you asking the question to? Adv: To the #SupremeCourt J. Shah: You cannot ask us questions. You can say 'I ask myself'. That's okay. Only we have that prerogative - to put questions to you. As seen in the responses below, to the general public, this comes across as highhandedness. Let's assume the lawyer is a newcomer still getting used to the system. What I'd like to know: Would judges in the courts of developed countries like USA, UK, France, Germany, etc. give similar instructions in their own courts? Or is this phenomenon, let's say, &quot;uniquely Indian&quot;? If so, what would be the reason a lawyer can't ask a judge questions?
The question should not include France and Germany, and should be limited to common law jurisdictions that are similar to India, because the function of judges differs starkly between adversarial vs. inquisitorial systems. The adversarial model pits two parties against each other, with the judge serving as the decider (of law, and perhaps of fact). The parties can offer witnesses, who can be compelled to respond to questions, and the attorney asking the question gets to control the question asked (subject to a possible objection by the other party, to be ruled on by the judge). The judge can rule on requests (which are not questions) i.e. petitions by either party. Otherwise, the judge sits there more or less mute, soaking up the argumentation being presented. Appellate proceedings are somewhat special in that the justices may address questions to the attorney, in order to better understand the logic of the proffered argument. The burden is on the attorney to make the case. There is no direct burden on the justice to &quot;make a case&quot;. The &quot;court of public opinion&quot; may be relevant in a jurisdiction where the justice is an elected office or is appointed for limited time. Or, the contrary opinion of a higher court may have some influence on a justice's rulings – this is not the case with a Supreme Court. In other words, it would be highly dysfunctional within the adversarial system for a party to be allowed to interrogate a judge. Formal petitions are allowed, as long as you follow proper form.
The question seems to somewhat misunderstand the role of courts in the united-states The United States uses a common-law system, ultimately derived from the law of Great Britain as it was at the time of the US Revolution, and thus incorporating its history largely derived from the practices of English Courts. There was a period in this history where much new law was made by judges, although a great deal of it was also made by statutes, that is by Parliament. In theory such judge-made laws merely &quot;discovered&quot; what the law &quot;had always been&quot; but in practice judges made much new law. Since then the incidence of judge made law has greatly declined in the UK, and has declined even more in the US. I think that it is fair to say that Judges in the US do not now make new law with any frequency. There is, however, a major exception to this. In the US, the Federal Constitution is the &quot;supreme law of the land&quot;, and no federal or state statute, regulation or practice may stand if it does not conform to relevant requirements of the federal Constitution. (Nor may any local ordinance, regulation or practice.) But the federal constitution is written mostly in rather broad and general terms, requiring for example that &quot;due process of law&quot; be provided, but but not spelling out in detail what that means. It is therefore up to judges, and particularly to the judges of Federal appellate courts, and most particularly the US Supreme Court, to say when a law, regulation, or practice is in violation of some constitutional requirement, and what must be done to avoid such conflict. One example is the Miranda decision (Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) holding that when admissions or confessions by criminal suspects questioned while under arrest were admitted into criminal trials, this violated the defendants' rights against compelled self-incrimination unless they had been advised of their rights under the law, including the right to remain silent and the right to legal counsel. This introduced a new substantive rule of law as a way to enforce a long-existing constitutional provision. The Wikipedia article says: Miranda was viewed by many as a radical change in American criminal law, since the Fifth Amendment was traditionally understood only to protect Americans against formal types of compulsion to confess, such as threats of contempt of court. It has had a significant impact on law enforcement in the United States, by making what became known as the Miranda warning part of routine police procedure to ensure that suspects were informed of their rights. But the concept of &quot;Miranda warnings&quot; quickly caught on across American law enforcement agencies, who came to call the practice &quot;Mirandizing&quot;. A more recent example is the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) in which the US Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment together guaranteed a right to same-sex couples to marry. This again was a new substantive rule, significantly different from the previous practice for most of US history, as a way of defining and enforcing long-existing constitutional provisions. Related to these are cases where a law, or a provision of a law, is held to be unconstitutional, and thus not a valid law at all. An unconstitutional law may not validly be enforced. Such a case was West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) which held that laws requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (flag salute) in schools were unconstitutional. These sorts of actions do not occur in those common-law countries which do not have a formal written constitution that is superior to laws passed by the legislature. That is the case in the UK, for example. Aside from that sort of case, where constitutional rights are being asserted or constitutional requirements are being enforced, the main power of US judges over the law is to interpret the law (both statute and regulation) when it is unclear or ambiguous, and to decide exactly what it will mean and how it will be applied. These interpretations can be changed or completely reversed by later legislative action, that is by new laws passed by Congress or by a State legislature. This sort of interpretation occurs in all common-law countries, and also in civil-law countries, although to a somewhat lesser degree in civil-law countries. In general, civil-law countries tend to spell out their law in more specific detail in laws passed by the legislature, leaving somewhat less room for interpretation by courts and judges. By the way, my understanding is that Indonesia is not strictly a civil-law country, but uses a mixture of systems. The Wikipedia article &quot;Law of Indonesia &quot; says: Law of Indonesia is based on a civil law system, intermixed with customary law and the Roman Dutch law. Before the Dutch colonisation in the sixteenth century, indigenous kingdoms ruled the archipelago independently with their own custom laws, known as adat. Foreign influences from India, China and Arabia have not only affected the culture, but also weighed in the customary adat laws. I cannot speak to the specifics of how the courts of Indonesia have interpreted the law on drugs in that country.
Yes, you can be compelled by the government to reveal information: All it takes is a judge agreeing with a plaintiff or prosecutor that it has some relevance to a complaint over which the court has jurisdiction. If that point arrives and you want to protect that information you only have three choices: Get a legal team good enough to convince the court otherwise. Face the consequences of contempt of court for failing to supply the information requested. Flee to another jurisdiction before #2 happens.
In the USA communication between an attorney and their client is "privileged". This makes it illegal for, amongst other things, the police to listen in to conferences between a suspect and their attorney. However in practice there is often little to prevent the police actually doing so.
Police can lie However, in the United States they have to read you your Miranda warning (most other democratic countries have similar warnings): You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time. They have told you everything they are required to tell you - effectively “we are not on your side.” After that, they can lie their asses off. Of course, they wouldn’t ask you for a DNA sample - they’d ask you if you’d like a glass of water. Then they’ll take the DNA from that.
Almost none of this is written down anywhere in official court rules but there are some widely adopted standards for this practice. Most courts require that only one lawyer be in charge of speaking at any given stage of the trial. But, it wouldn't be unusual, for example, for one lawyer to question most of the witnesses and for a different lawyer who is more familiar with the specialized subject matter in question (e.g. electrical specifications), usually a junior lawyer, to question the expert witnesses in a case. Also, if the usually designated lawyer is absent for some reason (stuck in traffic, sick, etc.), the "second chair" lawyer can (and is often required to) take over the case for the client until the "first chair" lawyer is available again. Mostly, second chair lawyers (I've spent plenty of time over the years in this role) do the following (a non-exclusive list): take notes, pay attention to how the judge and jury are reacting to testimony, provide input into jury selection decisions, reminds the primary lawyer of points that still need to be covered in the examination of a witness, reminds the primary lawyer of exhibits that still need to be formally offered into evidence, scrambles to find rebuttal or impeachment evidence for unanticipated testimony, prompts the primary lawyer to make objections if the primary lawyer was paying attention to something else, identifies and has at the ready exhibits needs to present (or to follow the other side's examination), looks up points of law that are relevant or will need to be referenced that come up during trial, handles logistics for witnesses who are not on the stand (keeping them in the hallway if the witness is sequestered, trying to obtain the appearance of no show witnesses or reshuffling their order, saying thank you to witnesses who are no longer on the stand, etc.), carries some of the litigation team's stuff into and out of the court room, provides informed commentary and suggestions during breaks and working lunches, etc. Also, in addition to the usual "first chair" and "second chair" roles, often supplemented by a paralegal or legal assistant, there is a different kind of arrangement in which different lawyers for the same person can fully participate. This far less common arrangement happens when the person showing up in court is wearing "more than one hat" and has a different lawyer in different capacities. For example, suppose that someone is the President of a corporation and both the corporation and the President individually are both sued. There might be one primary lawyer for the corporation and one for the President personally, and both lawyers might participate fully.
An interrogation isn't necessarily a sit-down-in-a-room thing. Miranda v. Arizona clarifies what they mean by "interrogation" for the purposes of that opinion: By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. If any post-arrest questioning might happen, it is prudent to inform the defendant of their rights. Miranda also reminds us that: Any statement given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influences is, of course, admissible in evidence. The fundamental import of the privilege while an individual is in custody is not whether he is allowed to talk to the police without the benefit of warnings and counsel, but whether he can be interrogated. [...] Volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the Fifth Amendment, and their admissibility is not affected by our holding today. The police are not required to give a Miranda warning in order to make use of statements that the defendant volunteers while in custody. But, police generally can't predict when they might ask the defendant a question (or otherwise make the defendant feel compelled to answer).
I am guessing that the question is about the United States, since the &quot;objection!&quot; procedure is not the same in other places. The Supreme Court has held that even though you have the right to represent yourself, this is conditional on your maintenance of proper conduct. If you disrupt proceedings and disregard judicial directions, then the judge can find you in contempt of court, just as with anybody else who was doing that. In Illinois v Allen, 397 U.S. 337 (1970), a self-represented litigant &quot;started to argue with the judge in a most abusive and disrespectful manner&quot;, threatened the judge's life, and made clear that he intended to filibuster the process, saying &quot;There is going to be no proceeding. I'm going to start talking and I'm going to keep on talking all through the trial. There's not going to be no trial like this.&quot; The judge ordered him removed from the courtroom on several instances of this behavior, and also appointed professional counsel. Following a series of appeals against all this, the Supreme Court ultimately said: Although mindful that courts must indulge every reasonable presumption against the loss of constitutional rights, Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 304 U. S. 464 (1938), we explicitly hold today that a defendant can lose his right to be present at trial if, after he has been warned by the judge that he will be removed if he continues his disruptive behavior, he nevertheless insists on conducting himself in a manner so disorderly, disruptive, and disrespectful of the court that his trial cannot be carried on with him in the courtroom. Once lost, the right to be present can, of course. be reclaimed as soon as the defendant is willing to conduct himself consistently with the decorum and respect inherent in the concept of courts and judicial proceedings. It is essential to the proper administration of criminal justice that dignity, order, and decorum be the hallmarks of all court proceedings in our country. The flagrant disregard in the courtroom of elementary standards of proper conduct should not and cannot be tolerated. We believe trial judges confronted with disruptive, contumacious, stubbornly defiant defendants must be given sufficient discretion to meet the circumstances of each case. No one formula for maintaining the appropriate courtroom atmosphere will be best in all situations. We think there are at least three constitutionally permissible ways for a trial judge to handle an obstreperous defendant like Allen: (1) bind and gag him, thereby keeping him present; (2) cite him for contempt; (3) take him out of the courtroom until he promises to conduct himself properly.