engleski

Secondary School Pupil’s Knowledge of Court Proceeding and Their Perception of Courts Within Croatia

The research aimed to make an initial assessment of pupil’s perception of courts and basic knowledge of court proceeding within Croatian legal system. Pen-and-paper form questionnaire was used. The questionnaire consisted of both closed and open-ended questions, with the emphasis on the latter. Subjects were 113 conveniently sampled 14-to-18 years-old secondary school pupils with no prior legal knowledge education (77.2%) or real-life court proceedings experience (90%). Only a part of the results are presented. In all, 68.3% of the pupils consider their legal knowledge as being insufficient. Only 5.9% knew the age of the threshold of the majority, and they prefer being questioned by one as opposed to multiple experts. The overwhelming majority believes that minor perpetrator should be accompanied to the court by their parents and the defence attorney. Principal components analysis of the court-related anticipated negative emotions yielded two emotional clusters with the first delineating behaviourally passive but cognitively more self-directed and reflective orientation and the other behaviourally more proactive. Pupils report wanting to be included in decision making, their voice to be heard and at the same time seem to displace their liability to their parents. They believe the court is important, just, sometimes scary, without prejudice, formal and cold. Pupils demonstrate a low level of court-related knowledge even when it comes to basic concepts and at the same time express the need to be given an active role in court proceedings.

children ; legal knowledge ; perception ; court proceeding

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