My understanding is that the prohibition on leading questions is a common law concept, not part of the civil law. As well, the judge in a civil law court is permitted to be much more interventionist than a judge in a common law court.
OK, that makes sense then. So perhaps the judge was trying to determine whether the child was merely responsible for 200 euro of damage to a mirror, or whether he also caused the other 2800 euro of damage to the door.
I’m not sure on the legalities of the issue, partly because I know that the answer can depend on the type of trial. For example, in the US, damages of this size (it’s $5,000 USD in many states) would fall under our “small claims court” procedures, which are much less formal and rarely include any lawyers. The kinds of things you’d do in small claims are very different from a jury trial. In small claims, I wouldn’t find anything unusual about a judge asking a question like this, and I’d expect the mother to feel free to interrupt and rephrase the question if she thought the child had been confused by the question.
In a jury trial, it would be unusual for the judge to ask questions directly; it’s assumed that lawyers will be present to do the examination and cross-examination.
Anyway, looking at it from a moral perspective, my opinion goes back to the presence of the parents. As long as the parents can say “Wait, I think my son misunderstood you” then I think the judge is OK to ask a question like that. Children sometimes latch onto details of a situation that aren’t as important to the adults, so they need to be prompted for the whole story. The parent can make sure their kid isn’t being lead to give incorrect answers.
Yes, I think that it was a similar proceeding for small damages, at least I know for a fact that no lawyers were present. As for my sister not interrupting, I believe it was just a case of having the right retort way too late. If I had been present and had the right to interrupt, I would’ve objected to the question.
The judge in the “inquisitorial system” doesn’t have a neutral role, he has an role more like an investigator. He can ask what he wants of the witnesses because his role is to bring out the truth.
In the US formal legal system, called the “adverserial system” the judge has a neutral role. He moderates the argument, determines what can be evidence, and makes a decision about who proved their case more effectively (to simplify a lot). It’s not terribly important if the truth comes out; The US system believes that a neutral party measuring the proof presented by competing adversaries is the best way of producing the truth, but its not an explicit goal of the system.
By contrast in administrative tribunals (worker’s compensation and unemployment hearings are some that people might be familiar with in US) operate on a more inquisitorial system with the judges having greater freedom to question the witnesses as well as the lawyers. The rules of evidence are also relaxed greatly compared to formal courts, and you don’t have to have a lawyer.
It sounds like the hearing you describe could have been either a small claims matter or an internal fact-finding hearing of some kind using the inquisitorial system. In that case what happened was pretty normal for either of those forums.
There are pros and cons to inquisitorial vs. adverserial. You can debate which is more morally correct but I believe most of Europe accepts the inquisitorial system as standard. This fairly recent book states that in Germany judges are particularly encouraged to question witnesses. The rules of leading/not-leading are rules of the adverserial system.
tl;dr you have this idea from watching too many semi-accurate US legal shows 
Seems to be the case, as I conceded before. I really don’t know much about legal proceedings in any jurisdiction, so this being the Dope, I could have foreseen getting into a juridical discussion, but I don’t mind.
A question that suggests the answer is leading and is not permitted to be asked to a friendly witness. But the judge gets to do what the judge wants in this regard. This doesn’t seem to me to be reversible error. However my jurisdiction of expertise is California, not anywhere else.
The rules for leading questions are also very different in civil law countries, where judges have a more investigatory role than in the English system.
It does seem to me a dick move by the judge. He didn’t ask “Did you hit the door?”, he asked, basically, “So, you did hit the door. Was that next?” He could have said “Did you hit the door? Was that right after the mirror?”
I am not sure this is really worth dredging up a semi-zombie, but I came across this thread by mistake. It’s not a leading question, at least not as we’d use the term in the US. A question is not leading simply because it can be answered yes or no. It’s leading if it suggests the answer to the witness.
If there was no prior testimony about the kid hitting the door (or anything other than the mirror), the proper objection in the US context would be that the question presumes facts not in evidence.
old thread, but what the heck: the whole concept of a “leading question” is, to my understanding, unique to the common law world. It’s also not a general prohibition: a lawyer can’t ask leading questions of the lawyer’s own witnesses in chief, but certainly can ask leading questions when cross-examining the other party’s witnesses.
But I would say it’s irrelevant to this case, because this proceeding took place in Germany, which is a civil law country with a different court system. The judge has a much broader role in the trial process and is expected to ask questions of the witness. Since the concepts of “examination in chief” and “cross-examination” aren’t part of the civil trial process (to the best of my understanding; certainly open to correction), then the question asked here wouldn’t have been a problem.
Typically, litigants or their counsel don’t ask questions at all in civil law proceedings. They prepare questions for the judge.
My understanding was that it varies with jurisdiction: in some countries, it’s as you say, everything goes through the judge, but in others, the lawyers/parties can put questions, subject to much stronger judicial oversight than in the common law countries. But, I’m certainly open to correction. 