The Digital Turn

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Sarah Esther Lageson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Competing Values ◽  
Privacy Rights ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
Criminal Justice Processing

Recent decades have witnessed a digital turn in criminal justice processing that has contributed to the creation and dissemination of millions of criminal records per year, impacting both criminal justice workers and those processed by the system. Current US law has allowed for the public dissemination of these records, emphasizing free speech and transparency over other competing values, such as due process, privacy, or liberty. The turn toward digital disclosure of criminal justice information has outpaced thoughtful discussions about balancing privacy rights and the notion of public interest that the courts have developed during the past century. It is certainly in the public interest to have access to the workings of the police, courts, and prisons—it is a fundamental way that citizens can keep an eye on these powerful institutions. However, these core transparency values are being used for a different, entrepreneurial purpose since criminal records have become a commodified good.

scholarly journals Converging Criminal Justice Systems: Guilty Pleas and the Public Interest

1997 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 169-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham S. Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Prosecutorial Discretion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Formal Systems ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Justice Systems

It is becoming increasingly apparent to criminal justice scholars that single theory models of criminal procedure — whether termed inquisitorial or adversarial — are being stretched beyond their capacity by the phenomena they are designed to control. Virtually everywhere, formal systems of charge and adjudication cannot possibly be enforced in accordance with the premises underlying them. There are simply too many offenses, too many offenders and too few resources to deal with them all. One result has been a steady movement towards a convergence of legal systems — towards borrowing from others those institutions and practices that offer some hope of relief.In this transnational effort to cope with system overload, two issues have emerged as more than ordinarily significant: The first is the desirability of abandoning the principle of obligatory prosecution, so common in Continental Europe, and turning instead to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. The second is the question whether the ban on guilty pleas and plea bargains should be lifted, as in adversarial systems.

A critical analysis of the anti-corruption policy of the federal executive council of Nigeria

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehi Eric Esoimeme
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Executive Council ◽  
Plea Bargain ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Financial Action Task

Purpose This paper aims to examine the anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria, to determine whether the policy is working and/or has produced unintended effects. The Federal Executive Council is the body comprising all the Ministers of the Federation, including the President and Vice President. Design/methodology/approach The analysis took the form of a desk study, which analysed various documents and reports such as the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, 2008-2016, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, 2004, the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, 2016, the Public Interest Disclosure and Witness Protection Bill, 2017 and the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations, 2012. Findings This paper determined that the anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria could achieve its desired objectives if the following recommendations are implemented: research grants which are sent to Nigerian universities by international and corporate bodies should be exempted from the current treasury single account arrangement. This would enable universities to easily access the funds and disburse the same to qualified students. The Federal Government should follow the guidelines laid down in Section 270 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 for plea agreements. In other words, the prosecution should only offer a plea bargain to a person who has been charged with an offence. The prosecution should not receive and consider a plea bargain from a person who has not been charged with an offence. Any attempt to water down the effect of Section 270 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 may weaken the ongoing fight against corruption and money laundering because criminals will be encouraged to continue looting public funds. The Financial Action Task Force Recommendations (Recommendation 3) requires that criminal sanctions for natural persons convicted of money laundering should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. The Federal Government of Nigeria should introduce a Bill to the National Assembly that would provide a clear framework for the use of investigatory powers by law enforcement, the security and intelligence agencies and other public authorities. This includes the interception of communications, the retention and acquisition of communications data, the use of equipment interference and the retention and use of bulk data by the security and intelligence agencies. The Bill must establish a number of safeguards against the arbitrary or unlawful use of investigatory powers by the executive. The UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, 2016, for example, established a number of safeguards for the retention and acquisition of communications data. Authorisations for obtaining communications data will have to set out why accessing the communications data in question is necessary in a specific investigation for a particular statutory purpose and how it is proportionate to what is sought to be achieved. A police officer who receives information from a whistleblower about money hidden in an apartment should apply to a Court or Justice of the Peace within the local limits of whose jurisdiction he/she is for the issue of a search warrant before conducting a search on the said premises. This procedure is in line with Section 143 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 and the Court of Appeal decision in Hassan v. E.F.C.C. (2014) I NWLR (Pt. 1389) 607 at 625. The Public Interest Disclosure and Witness Protection Bill, 2017 should be given accelerated consideration in the House of Representatives based on its urgency and significance for the Federal Executive Council’s whistleblowers policy. Research limitations/implications This paper focusses on the anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria from 29 May 2015 to 10 June 2017. It does not address the older policies. Originality/value This paper offers a critical analysis of the new anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria. The paper will provide recommendations on how the policy could be strengthened. This is the only paper to adopt this kind of approach.

scholarly journals REKAM MEDIS: PENGGUNAAN INFORMASI MEDIS PASIEN DALAM PELAKSANAAN ASAS PERLINDUNGAN PUBLIK

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 399-423
Author(s):  
Yudi Yasmin Wijaya ◽  
Edy Suyanto ◽  
Fanny Tanuwijaya
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Medical Record ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Medical Records ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Medical Condition ◽  
Privacy Rights ◽  
Confidential Information ◽  
The Public

Medical records contain confidential information of patient’s medical condition and treatment given.  In the public interest or for the sake of law enforcement, the confidentiality of medical records may be breached.   Stake holders (patients, health workers and law enforcers) should take cognizance of what procedures and limitation exist when requesting the acquisition of medical records in the public interest. Using a juridical doctrinal method, the prevailing rules and regulation related to medical record and its breach of confidentiality shall be analysed.  One important finding is that there is a dire need to seek a balance between satisfying public interest and the protection of patient’s privacy rights.

Prosecution in France

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Hodgson ◽  
Laurène Soubise
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Criminal Justice Policy ◽  
The Public

This essay examines the increasingly ambivalent role and status of the French prosecutor, the procureur. As a judicial officer (magistrat), she is required to act in and to uphold the public interest, but her hierarchical accountability to the executive and her role in the formation and implementation of local criminal justice policy threaten her independence, notably in the eyes of her fellow magistrats. The dominance of the executive, both politically and through the imposition of managerialist imperatives, is felt in the ever-expanding role of the procureur, especially in the local sphere. While the limited forms of legal and structural accountability in place leave the prosecutor with broad discretion, this is diminished through the drive to standardization resulting from the delegation of work to fulfill the demands of dealing with greater numbers of cases more quickly, with fewer resources.

OPTIMALISASI ASAS OPORTUNITAS PADA KEWENANGAN JAKSA GUNA MEMINIMALISIR DAMPAK PRIMUM REMEDIUM DALAM PEMIDANAAN

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-236
Author(s):  
Yodi Nugraha
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Public Prosecutor ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
The Public

In the Indonesian criminal justice system, every public prosecutor possesses the authority to cease criminal prosecution in the name of public interest. In contrast, in the Netherland, only the Attorney General (Procureur Generaal) at the Supreme Court has this authority.  This article discusses this authority to cease of terminate criminal prosecution in the name of public interest.  To do this a comparative approach is used in which the ruling of this authority to terminate criminal prosecution as found in the Draft of the Indonesian Criminal Code will be compared against the same regulation and policy used in the Netherlands.  A doctrinal and comparative law approach will be used. One recommendation resulting from this research is the need to re-evaluate the existing procedure and requirement of terminating criminal prosecution in the public interest in the Indonesian context and the introduction of Rechter-Commissaris into the criminal justice system.

Privacy Rights and Satellite Broadcasts

1993 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 384-414
Author(s):  
Jonathan Gillis
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Practical Problem ◽  
Privacy Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Broadcasts ◽  
Tv News ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law ◽  
Private Individual

The subject matter of this article is, at bottom, a practical problem. It accepts that people have a right to privacy and that this right should find proper protection in the law. It asks, simply, whether such protection is at all feasible given the particular technology of broadcast by satellite.For the purposes of investigating this problem several issues must be addressed. First is the nature of the violation of privacy involved. Our concern here is principally with TV news broadcasts. We begin from the point where the debate over “what is in the public interest versus what the public is interested in” has ended; there will be general consensus that the content of a certain broadcast represents a violation of an individual's privacy and one about which the law should do something. An example might be the filming in the public domain of a private individual caught in the shock of personal grief or tragedy. In such a case we would need to investigate the nature of the injury involved in any subsequent broadcast of these sounds and images, and to ask what dimension, if any, is added to this injury by their simultaneous broadcast across the globe.

scholarly journals Victims and the sentencing process: developing participatory rights?

Legal Studies ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 651-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Doak ◽  
Ralph Henham ◽  
Barry Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Structural Parameters ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Public ◽  
Adversarial System ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Procedural Rights

Recent years have seen a number of developments pertaining to the notion that victims should be afforded a ‘voice’ in the criminal justice system. The theoretical and structural parameters of the adversarial system are not, however, conducive to exercising such a role. For many, conferring procedural rights on victims jeopardises the due process rights of the accused, as well as the public nature of the criminal justice system. In light of the recent decision to roll out the ‘Victims' Focus Scheme’ across England and Wales, this paper explores a number of issues of principle that arise – not least the deeper policy implications of an apparent re-alignment of the normative parameters of the criminal justice system to incorporate the private interests of third parties.

scholarly journals The victim in the Irish criminal process: a journey from dispossession towards partial repossession

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-517
Author(s):  
Shane Kilcommins
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Procedural Rationality ◽  
Criminal Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Objective Truth ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
A Site

This article has sought to examine the criminal justice system’s interactions with victims of crime. It is a relationship which has changed irrevocably over time. A significant discontinuity occurred in the nineteenth century when a new architecture of criminal and penal semiotics slowly emerged. An institutional way of knowing interpersonal conflict crystallised, one which reified system relations over personal experiences. It also emphasised new ideals and values such as proportionality, legalism, procedural rationality, equality and uniformity. New commitments, discourses and practices came to the fore in the criminal justice network. In modernity, the problem of criminal wrongdoing became a rationalised domain of action, a site which actively distrusted and excluded ‘non-objective’ truth claims. The state, the law, the accused and the public interest became the principal claims-makers within this institutional and normative arrangement, an arrangement which would dominate criminal and penal relations for the next 150 years. In the last 40 years, the victim has slowly re-emerged as a stakeholder in the criminal process.

Konsep Perlindungan Korban dalam Sistem Peradilan Pidana Nasional dan Sistem Hukum Pidana Islam

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48
Author(s):  
Vivi Ariyanti
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The State ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Current Position ◽  
Law System ◽  
The Public

The current position of victims in the criminal justice system has not been placed fairly, because victims in the judiciary are only represented by public prosecutors who base their charges on statutory rules and facts obtained from witnesses. This paper reviews and compares the Indonesian national criminal justice system and Islamic criminal law system in terms of protecting the rights of victims of criminal acts during and after undergoing the trial process. The study of victims in the Western criminal law system adopted by Indonesia has been so extensive and profound, that it raises its own science called victimology, which is parallel to the science of criminology. Meanwhile Islamic criminal law (al-Fiqh al-Jinayah) still refers to fiqh books written by medieval jurists, so that the study of Islamic criminal law is stagnant and without significant progress. However, both national criminal law and Islamic criminal law, in principle, emphasize that the protection of victims must be balanced between the interests of the victims themselves, the perpetrators of crime, society, the state, and the public interest.

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