The Disintegration of The Criminal Justice System

Context: There is a decline in the criminal justice system whereby it is gradually being replaced by a problem-solving system handled by the executive and establishing truth through trials has ceased to exist.

Issues with the Criminal Justice System:

• Punishment before conviction: It is often forgotten that the punishment can only arise upon a judgment of conviction at the end of a trial. 
• E.g. Vikas Dubey encounter case, there was no waiting for a trial to condemn the accused and sentence him; punishment was swiftly meted out by the police itself. 
• Condemnation without a trial:  Police became judge, jury and executioner.
• E.g. the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government passed a law enabling the publishing of massive hoardings with the names and personal details of persons allegedly involved in the destruction of property, caused in riots following the anti-Citizenship Act protests. 
• Here, the state took the action before the court had convicted them for these acts.

• A blind eye to certain incidents of violence:

• E.g. delay in registering a case for hours and not recognizing serious offences of rape in the recent lime lighted Hathras Case.
• Transformation from criminal justice system into a problem-solving system: due to the following reasons:

• A growing disconnect between the government and judiciary in matters of criminal justice.

• Police are more efficient than courts: UP police has a pendency rate of 15%, while the courts have more than 90%. (Crime in India 2019 Data)
• The delay exacerbates the natural time gap between incident and any potential punishment.
• This disconnect also reduces value of condemnation through trials. 

• The bolstering of executive power as a result of this growing disconnect.

• The system where judges lose their sway is where the executive gains more power.
• Seminal moment in the criminal process: is being defined as the arrest and not the conviction
• The executive tries to legally bolster powers of pretrial arrest and custody while arrogating itself more powers to punish without condemnation.

• The unsurprising imitation of executive-mindedness by the judiciary

• The courts prefer to look at the facts at the stage of bail itself.
• Courts prefer to arrive at settlements by using incarceration as a bargaining tool to force errant accused persons to make reparations. 
• Thus the presumption of innocence of an alleged person is ruled out even by the judiciary itself.