In recent years an increasing quantity of UK legislation has introduced blendedor ‘hybridised’ procedures that blur the previously clear demarcation between civil andcriminal legal processes, typically on the grounds of normatively-motivated politicalexpediency. This paper provides a critical perspective on instances of proceduralhybridisation in order to illustrate that, first, the reliance upon civil law measures to remedycriminal law infractions can raise human rights issues and, second, that such instrumentalcriminal justice strategies deliberately circumvent the enhanced procedural protections ofthe criminal law. By conceptualising the rule of law as a structural coupling between thepolitical and legal systems, and due process rights as necessary and self-imposed limita-tions upon systemic operations, this paper employs a systems-theoretical approach tocritique this balancing act between expediency and principle, and queries the circum-stances under which legislation contravening the rule of law can be said to lack legitim

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• Expediency, Legitimacy, and the Rule of Law: A SystemsPerspective on Civil/Criminal Procedural Hybrids