Criminal Law: Truth or Justice?

by Tom Beattie

The Law is our fundamental system of regulation. In broad terms the criminal law is a code or set of rules designed to dictate civil and criminal liability and therefore quantify a method or length of punishment. Without such a system in place there would be disorder and perhaps chaos. The law has the ability to enforce responsibility by creating obligatory restrictions that are in turn followed or accepted by a civilised society in order to control behaviour. The agreement between the government and the governed is the foundation of judicial power and thus, forms the bedrock for criminal law. However, their consent to be governed is conditional on protection from harm and, in the event of civil or criminal liability, to issuing of sanctions. 

Revolutions or disputes to the law are often manufactured from inequities in the legal structure. Ineffective laws fail to protect complying citizens and fail to honour their rights and liberties. Whilst the perception of law tends to be that it is fixed and rigid, a more reasonable interpretation is required to prevent unfair interpretations and thus unfair judgements. This is essential in supporting the notion of justice and therefore showing that law is the great equaliser. Justice is comprised of evenness, tolerance, equitability and moral rightness. However, it is also true that a good lawyer can take a complex piece of litigation and extrude, from ambiguity, his or her desired meaning, influencing the opinion of the jury. This is often used as an instrument of injustice. Judges use this concept in order to promote proper procedure and above all to make sure the correct outcome is achieved. 

There are often uncertainties in the meaning of the law, one of the reasons that we require debate and a consensus in order to carry out punishment. Similarly, there are often uncertainties in court procedure. As referenced, justice is the central purpose of courts however there is often confusion around the purpose of criminal litigation. Rather than a meticulous examination in the hope of finding out the truth and arriving at a conclusion, criminal litigation in about sufficiently measuring the severity of one's actions and quantifying their punishment, if one is deserved at all. Many would read the facts of a case, or read into the history of the individual in question and conclude that they almost certainly are deserving of punishment. However, the first thing to realise in our criminal justice system is that the alleging party is required to prove their charge by producing a sufficient quantity of credible evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt, the protective mask of presumed innocence can be removed. Alternatively, this is a level of persuasion that sits lower than absolute certainty, but higher than probability and possibility. This can be shown by the fact that an accusation is not proven to be true in the event that competing possibilities are of equal likelihood and the difference between them can only be shown by pure speculation, a form of unreliable evidence. Thus, an inkling or even a strong suspicion is not sufficient and therefore will not stand in court. Here we can see the second important premise in the credibility of evidence. In UK court, irrelevant evidence, even if true, is deemed inadmissible. A person’s history of misconduct being used to determine the likelihood of similar behaviour in the future is, whilst seemingly logical, not used as evidence as it is accepted that one’s past does not always determine their future. Similarly, the sexual history of an alleged rape victim is also considered irrelevant through fears that it may distract from the issue of consent. 

Another point of interest is juries. Inside the UK courtroom there are twelve citizens called the jury. Every trial in the Crown Court calls upon these twelve citizens, who are selected at random, to unanimously agree whether the alleged is guilty or not guilty. Members of the jury are between eighteen and seventy-five and cannot have a criminal record. If you satisfy these criteria then you could be called to serve on a jury. However, the modern jury can often be unpredictable. There is no way of understanding the deliberations by which different juries have reached their verdict as the reasoning is completely protected from disclosure. But the reason that we can show unpredictability is due to the fact that the jury's job is to decide whether or not an individual has acted dishonestly. In order to determine this they must compare the alleged to the standards of decent, honest members of society. It transpires that there is often not a consensus on what total honesty means. Research shows that there are disagreements based on gender and age with older people being less empathetic. It may also be true that people are less likely to consider an action dishonest if they have done it themselves. As a result, two defendants may be alleged to have committed the same crime, but have different chances of being found guilty based on the juries age and gender profile. 

In conclusion, when people talk about breaking the law most think in terms of criminality. It is clear that the criminal justice system is often misunderstood as being a mechanism that deciphers only the truth. However, it is primarily concerned with upholding the notion of justice, which is not always a rigid concept but rather requires context, empathy and careful consideration. Due to the abstract nature of justice, the unpredictability of the courtroom and uncertainties in the English language, it is unfortunately true that criminal law is not always equitable.