Introduction
Criminal justice system is a classification of laws and institutions directed to safeguard citizens and their property by perpetuating social control, preventing and alleviating crime. It verifies whether an action is an offence or not to the community. In Australia, everyone is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty by the law. As such, the law sanctions lawbreakers with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts. The fundamental advantage criminal system of justice is that the accused cannot prove their state of innocence and it is the sole purpose of the state, via the prosecutor to determine the guilt (Daly, Israel, & Goldsmith, 2005, pp 265-281). The accused have protective laws that bar them from investigatory abuse and powers of prosecution. On the other hand, criminal offenders are subjected punishment such as community service, imprisonment and fines. Despite the fact that the present system is viewed to be the best, Australia needs to use a more efficient and fair system to deliver justice since the public prospects are above what the criminal justice system can offer. This implies that the Australians are no longer contented with this process driven system. The criminal justice system should fortify on the delivery of justice, fairness and effectiveness during court proceedings. This paper describes a suitable criminal justice system and its preferences to the current Australian system.
An appropriate criminal justice system preferable to Australia should comprises of three major division namely legislative whose task is to make laws, adjudication or the court that determines whether an accused is innocent or not and corrections. A good system needs to have cooperation between these agencies under the rule of law. An offender makes his or her first contact with system when the police arrest him after thorough investigation. The police have a mandate to implement full legislative powers to ensure that an accused is brought to justice (Bryett, Craswell, Harrison, & Shaw, 1993, pp 8-14). This level allows for calling of national law enforcement unit if the accused criminal is considered a national threat. The police might use force and other legalized means when the criminal is wanted. The essential role of the police is to maintain peace and make criminal law obligatory as such, the police act as link between legislators and the adjudicators.
Courts provide justice by settling difference of opinion and delivering punishment based on the law. There are various groups of people in any given court setting namely the judge, prosecutor and defense counsel. The judge neutrally oversees the legal court events and offers a final ruling on the matter to dispose of a case. The court system can take two forms namely the adversarial or inquisitorial system. The adversarial system involves the two parts explaining the version of story through witnesses and going through their evidences by asking questions. A cross-examination, testing the authentication of witness by the other side, is also done. It delivers a verdict basing on the evidences and available facts presented. The judge takes the role of a referee to ensure adherence to the rules.
The inquisitorial system involves the magistrate and the judges investigating the offense further by asking questions during court proceedings. The prosecutor plays a role of bringing the impending charges against the accused. He clarifies the crime committed by the accused to the court and presents necessary evidences. The defense counsel directs the accused on legal processes and likely results for the accused. It is the sole responsibility of the accused to choose whether to testify and admit an appeal offer. The lawyer represents the interests of the client, comes up with evidences and try as much as possible to prove that the client is innocent. The judge, a panel of judges, determines the final ruling or a jury comprised of fair citizens. Some of the benefits linked to this system of justice include, the court has key role in delivering justice and easier to notice evidence alteration.
The third agency in this type of criminal justices system is the corrections. When the accused is proved guilty by the court, they proceed to correctional authorities. Prison is the most common form of punishment employed by many criminal justice systems apart from fine and offering service to the public. Incarceration form of punishment serves diverse purposes. It segregates criminals from the public hence preventing them from influencing the public to perpetrate the crime. However, the current prison system is oriented to rehabilitating criminals rather than providing discomfort to the prisoner. Most modern prisons provide job training and schooling as an opportunity for the criminals to pursue their vocation. This will transform them to live a justifiable life when they earn their freedom. Additional, religions has also been integrated in many prisons with aim of teaching ethical values and encourage a sense of integrity to prisoners. Fines as a form of punishment are paid to the state or the victims as a way of compensation. Criminal movements are limited through punishments such as probation and house arrest. Capital punishment or execution is still embraced around the world for serious offenses such as murder. It has been debated whether it justifiable to the offender. Some societies perceive it as being inhuman to the criminal.
Australia uses the adversarial system to deliver justice to criminals. Inquisitorial seems to have greater benefits when compared to adversarial. The first advantage of inquisitorial system is that the ability of obtaining an acquittal is very independent of the quality of the lawyers. It relies heavily on the significant facts of the case. Unlike adversarial in which the final decision is most likely to be influenced by lawyers. This implies that adversarial system offers justice to the rich who can afford to have professional lawyers while delivering injustices to clients who cannot afford such lawyers. Inquisitorial system is more efficient and fair to all classes since it does not favour an individual’s financial status to deliver justice hence should be the most preferred system of justice
Inquisitorial system of justice lessens the occurrence of false confession. In adversarial system, the defendant is subjected to sentencing upon confession. In contrast, inquisitorial requires an evidence for the defendant to confess. This implies that inquisitorial disallows the prosecution to evade the responsibility of presenting an obliging and full case. False confessions result to making of wrongful convictions. Additionally, inquisitorial system ensures that no evidences such as persuasive or unfounded information are excluded, since all evidence must be presented to the judge. This leads to fair decisions by the jury or the judge. On the contrary, adversarial allows evidences to be presented to the lawyers, which provide an opportunity to hide some important evidences. This still outshines adversarial system and hence Australia should implement this type of justice platform.
Inquisitorial reduces the degree of contest between parties, which is a characteristic of the adversarial system. Under inquisitorial, the judge proceeds to investigate and is concerned with the way the case will be presented. The judge’s role to control the questioning of witnesses during prosecution and the defense are warranted to ask additional questions. Additionally, the judges authority in the process has greater significance in reducing intimidation and the risk that a qualified lawyer might incline the balance of trial leading to unfair ruling. As result, the eminence of the evidence advances since the there would be less disagreement between lawyers which frequently is a distraction and time waster to the court. It is perceptible that inquisitorial saves time and allows the accused to express his opinion therefore most preferred form of delivering justice.
Doubtful and pregnable prosecutions can be prevented by inquisitorial system since it provides essential checks and balances during investigations. The judge is autonomous from the political power and prosecution. This nature of inquisitorial can prove to be of benefit to Australia system that is permitting the miscarriages of adversarial system. Moreover, the final ruling in inquisitorial is reached by collective vote of definite number of qualified judges and relatively small quorum of lay assessor, randomly selected individuals from the population. The defendant and the prosecution have no mandate to question the lay assessors for prejudice. Additionally, to make a verdict two-thirds majority is required whereas in adversarial a unanimous verdict is the tradition. This ensures that the process of justice delivery is more efficient and done in a fair manner.
An inquisitorial system safeguards the defendant from answering questions about the crime and allows him or her to answer the rest of the questions at trial. Majority of crime questions relate to the defendant’s background information, which might be regarded unrelated and unacceptable in adversarial system. Such a characteristic of the adversarial system makes it suitable for Australia to adopt inquisitorial system of justice. Irrelevant question tend to waste time during court proceedings hence delays justice in some cases.
Actual truth is the main concern of inquisitorial system. Bell & De-Shalit (2003) point out that the usage of adversarial depicts a scenario of the best attorney during court proceeding rather than the absolute truth. The current adversarial system in Australia seems to be unfair since the lawyers provide legal criminal protection. It is also important to note that the involvement of the entire system of justice such as the police, prosecutor, defense lawyer, court and accused in searching for evidence ensures that the accused is not silenced. The final decision in inquisitorial is based on the truth instead of who has the best lawyers. This ensures those criminals are brought to justice without the influence of attorneys. Since it does not consider the quality of advocate and his manipulation it is preferable compared to adversarial system.
The inquisitorial system is more efficient since the judge participates in questioning rather than being an umpire who weighs the evidences to make a decision. This purports that the judge is not a passive information recipient but responsible for collecting evidences to decide a case. The lawyers also play a flaccid role by briefly questioning witnesses. The judge asks relevant questions that are more oriented to establishing the truth. As such, the judge is likely to make a ruling based on the available truth hence fair and timely justice. Inquisitorial also offers a better and more efficient way of governance for the criminal justice hence the reform for Australia to shift from adversarial to inquisitorial would bring about rejuvenation of the current criminal system of justice and lead to a newer legal system regarding the twenty first century practices.
In conclusion, the court has full responsibility of proving a criminal guilty or not guilty depending on the available evidence. Criminal justice system has three major agencies namely policing, adjudication and correction, which are interdependent on carrying out their duty. Policing involves carrying out necessary investigation that will be used by the adjudicators to prove the accused guilty or not guilty. It is the role of the courts to give a verdict and sentence basing on the law. The function of the correction is to transform lawbreakers to fit in the society when they get free. Justice at the court can be obtained through two systems of justice namely inquisitorial system and adversarial. The distinction between them lies on the way interrogation is done. Inquisitorial system requires the judge to carry out questioning and participate in collection of evidence whereas the lawyer does adversarial question and the judge decides on the case basing on presented facts and their evidences. Australia is among countries that use adversarial form of justice delivery, which has its own drawbacks such as the doubtful and pregnable prosecutions, promoting false confession, obtaining truth by contesting the parties in providing evidences. The advantages of inquisitorial can be summarized as saving time and providing justice fairly to the criminal. It is important for Australia to adopt the inquisitorial model of justice to ensure that the innocent are acquitted and the guilty are convicted for the crimes they have committed.
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