Today, the criminal justice system has been designed in such a way that it hardly serves any of the purposes for which it has been built or designed that is to secure life and property. The criminal justice system provides a wide scope for the police and the prosecution for corruption and manipulation consequently putting at peril the basic rights of citizens. Present, the legal system completely ignores the real victims and their rights which in result compels him/her to resort to extralegal methods/ways for getting justice. Since, long time the criminal justice system has been treating criminals as a privileged person as taking care of their rights, but there is no or very fewer provisions for the welfare of the victims.
- Criminal justice has been continuously ignoring the rights and privileges of the victim who is the main sufferer. But, the time has come to change this trend and the system should be changed from more “criminal –centric” towards more “victim-centric”. Apart from the victims, many suspected criminals also suffer because of the present legal system as the delay and uncertainties cause great pain before reaching to the justice. Above all, under present criminal justice system, the state has to bear a heavy cost for its maintenance.
- The process of restorative justice is an approach to the crime which resolves the matter by involving the parties and the community at large along with the legal/statutory agencies. It is a process where all the subjects of law come together and resolve a conflict in a more democratic way and try to restore what has been lost due to the crime. The present criminal justice system needs to evolve such concepts to restore the life and liberty of the victims as well as criminals. By, adopting concepts like restorative justice our criminal justice system would be able to reach more efficiently so it’s the main objective that is to secure life and property.
Victim – centric criminal justice system
- Victim-centric or victim-oriented justice system is a system where main attention is attracted towards the victim of the crime. It is a system where rights of the victims are given higher priority. At present, victims are somewhere the forgotten piece of criminal justice system and are generally ignored. The victim-oriented system means to restore again the confidence in victims and to achieve the goal of justice keeping in view the rights of the victims. To adopt such system, the legislature may provide certain rights to the victims so that they can actively take part in the proceedings. These rights may involve right engage an advocate in grave offences, right to be impleaded, right to have the information about the progress in the proceedings, right to be heard, and they should also have right to help the court in getting justice done.
- A victim-oriented approach can also be adopted through adopting processes like reconciliation and restorative means of justice. It will also help in the prevention of delayed justice and will time and expense of the parties and state as well. Delayed justice brings frustration and may cause further more wrongs. Through the restorative justice system, it will be much easier to avoid such kind of frustration and stress. Restorative justice is a simple system for quick resolutions of wrongs. To involves parties to the crime and the community support to resolve the problems. Restorative justice tries to restore the interests and rights of both i.e victim as well as criminals. Restorative justice takes into consideration the stake of all three parties – the offender, the victim and the community. It is a form of harmonious resolution which tends for maximum satisfaction of the parties and restoring harmony and peace in the society.
- The concept of restorative justice is completely different from the concept of mediation, though it also involves the process of a meeting of the parties and marking of the responsibilities for the wrong committed and to find a favourable solution for all the three parties. The concept of, focuses on the needs of the victims and hence puts focus on the private aspect of the public wrong. Many times, the concept of restorative justice is deemed as the substitute of the formal justice system but it is not so rather it acts only as a support system to the formal justice system. It fulfils the deficiency or the lacuna which creates an obstacle to meet the goal of criminal justice system.
- One of the demarcating features of the restorative justice is that it does not overlook the needs of the crime victim as in present justice system. It focuses on the needs of the victims and their rights equally with those of criminals. Victims needs in the formal justice system are totally outside the concern of it. And when the attention is not given to the victim, it leads to the frustration which consequently leads to loss of faith in the justice system. The victim would gain the faith if the offender makes an effort to pay for the harm. The chief aim of the restorative justice is to answer the needs of victims.
Adversarial Model vs Restorative Justice
- In many countries around the world, the adversarial model of criminal justice is being, partly or wholly, replaced by the system of restorative justice. The reason behind this change is the results of crime control by the system of restorative justice. The concept of restorative justice is very simple and indigenous. In this system, emphasis is given more on community participation and state’s role is reduced. It saves state’s expenses and time which is further utilized in public welfare. The process of restorative justice is very much inclusive, transparent and accountable. Here, there is participation is enlarged and is transparent system and solves the issues at the maximum satisfaction of the parties.
- On the other hand, the adversarial model of criminal justice has been proved very expensive and time taking with inflicting the punishment it’s sole aim. Adversarial model overlooks the needs of the victims and keeps it focuses on punishing the offender. Countries like India, need to be very careful while adopting with new justice system while keeping an adversarial system for grave and serious offences and for less serious offences it is advisable to evolve and adapt more democratic methods like restorative justice.
SUGGESTIONS
- Many proponents of restorative justice are of the view that it is a simple thing but it is not so, it is a complicating process to deal with, before resorting to the process of restorative justice there needs to be done good research regarding its application and longstanding debates regarding the purposes of the punishment, there is need for promoting the effeccacious and effective results of the different types of dispute resolution, and a study over the relationships between victim, accused and the society along with the statutory agencies in order to create a favourable criminal justice systems.
- The concept of restorative justice is not for the replacement of the formal justice system but it is merely a backup to it. The reasons for its adoptions are obvious as it saves a lot of time, is simple to deal with and is a very cheap method to provide justice to the parties. The formal justice system is also necessary as proper justice cannot be availed through restorative justice in cases of grave and heinous offences. Applying restorative justice concept to grave offences may cause a bigger loss to the society. So, while reserving the adversarial criminal justice system for grave and heinous offences, we need to adopt more democratic justice system which should aim at the restoration of the relationships between the victim, offender and the community.
Post by- Kuldeep Kumar Yadav
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