Following the ruling today on the definition of miscarriage of justice, the Supreme Court Panel has said that a claimant for compensation will not need to prove that he was innocent of the crime but he will have to show that, on the basis of the facts as they are now known, he should not have been convicted or that conviction could not possibly be based on those facts.
This obviously changes the position where the Justice Secretary agrees a proposal to solely compensate people who he decides have been completely exonerated of the crime they were wrongly convicted.
We will have to stay alert and witness the development of the law in this area, how a claimant will be automatically entiltled for a compensation following miscarriages of justice is something that the court will have to issue guidance. I dont think that procedural deficiencies that lead to irregularities in the trial and errors in the investigation of the offences will be enough to support the claim for compenasation.
But the fact is this is a new dawn for miscarriage of justice.
On another note, we would wonder to ask what will become of those who spend years behind bars on remand without having them either convicted or granted bail. Where prosecutors ask for more time of investigation before a judge and drive the court to think that they have put forward a credible case, it impinges on the accused who spend in jail for nothing on what seemed to be a good case for the prosecution. This surely demands the court to redefine the maxim"Justice delayed is justice denied" and ensure that proper guidelines and procedures are duly followed by both the prosecution and the defence.
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