In article ,
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One has to wonder what happened to the European courts.
Sure, they have always come up with some odd rulings, but for the most
part they were reasonable.
They seem to have taken on a new bent to one up the USA courts in
ridiculousness.

What happens in Europe is that a full investigation cannot be launched
without an accusation of criminal wrongdoing. The air safety
organizations will do their investigation, but most of them do not have
the means or the autonomy of the US NTSB - so in order to get a full
factual investigation, criminal charges have to be brought against
individuals.

Secondly, the civil law system is much less developed than in the US, so
recourse through far-reaching lawsuits is much more limited. Therefore,
for victims and families to feel they are getting something from the
justice system, professionals and individuals must face criminal charges,
and even go to jail, though they may not have done anything terribly
different from their peers or in any way participated in a criminal act.

Think about this the next time you are tempted to criticize the US civil
law system, with its "outrageous" lawsuits. The alternative is the
European system, where air traffic controllers, pilots and civil servants
go to jail as "criminals" because somebody has to pay when innocent
people lose their lives in accidents. . .