Different scenes, similar issues. In the United States, a judge is dealing with detainment through videoconference. Some detainees start appearing on the screen and taking the oath, but the camera does not capture the whole scene, making the detainees' hands as well as the Bible not visible. The prisoners know they have followed a ritual and the judge can well confirm it. Is it nevertheless enough to feel that the ritual has been respected? Moving the stage to a Criminal Court in the South of France, a ballistics expert is heard through videoconference from his Parisian laboratory. He is in control, in his own space; the lawyer who is trying to ask him questions does not insist on the subject. Time and money have been saved, possibly to the detriment of the adversarial proceedings that seem weakened. In France, judicial experts no longer travel much to attend criminal trials. Because they are not physically present in front of the jury, their science seems even more unassailable. The expert's intervention and the questions asked are rather quickly dealt with, as if the judge had felt that the expert had something else to do. Had he travelled from Paris, would he have been listened to for ten minutes only? The situation is not very different in Northern Europe, more precisely in Norway, where a judge shared his experience about witnesses giving remote testimony via videoconference. He acknowledged that it was more difficult to exercise his judgment about such witnesses' credibility, as it was nearly impossible to ascertain that there was no one hidden behind the camera trying to put pressure on them. Initially, the judge had taken the view that videoconferencing was a substitute for an in-person hearing, as it 'looked like' a hearing, but he later on wondered whether the conditions were right. Similarly in France, a statute used to authorise videoconferencing when it was required to extend compulsory hospitalisation in case of mental illness. This measure prevented judges from travelling kilometres from one psychiatric hospital to another. This solution, as practical as it was, was ultimately abolished, as it turned out that patients were destabilised by the process, which even led to bouts of paranoia 1 . Examples could be multiplied. The main question is hence whether the principles of immediacy and orality are respected in videoconferencing. In case of ant doubt, the new principle of co-presence should be established, with restrictive exceptions.

Although the principle of immediacy does not exist as such in French civil proceedings 2 , there are on-going debates on the principle of presence (presence in person) with respect to videoconferencing. If the French Constitutional Court considers that videoconference cannot be used in criminal proceedings since defendants must be present to defend themselves, this solution seems to be accepted in civil proceedings.

In England and then Great Britain, the King's Courts proceedings were oral and accusatory, while they used to be written in the Chancery Court (the Equity court), under the influence of Romano-canonical laws. After the Judicature Acts 1872-1875, both procedures were merged 1