Miscarriages of justice by Michel Huyette

Miscarriages of justice by Michel Huyette




By Michel Huyette



Among the comments on justice, it is a concept which is more often than in turn: miscarriage of justice. This is why it seems useful to dig this problem in an attempt to know what really happened.

Precision is necessary at the outset that things are well clear. Judges commit mistakes, this is indisputable. It cannot be otherwise, every human being who at one time or another failures. This is therefore not here in an awkward and illusory reflex corporatist to challenge the assertion that errors occur.

But because the phrase "miscarriage of Justice" is used incorrectly and across, and too often to describe situations which correspond to any "error", it is necessary to try to sort in this order to identify what is actually the error and what is not.

I will review therefore one after another (in successive sections), some frequent statements relating to "judicial errors", to see what that is and whether it is this that it is. We will move from the simplest to the most complicated. This will allow us to identify little by little this concept.


Proposition 1: "I do not agree with the decision, it is a miscarriage of Justice"

The intervention of a judge is unique in that in many trials decision made many satisfied disappointed. It is often the case when two opposing parties defend radically opposing arguments. Hence these thoughts: "I do not understand the decision, I totally agree with it, judge did anything, it is an error just committed".

Psychologically, this is not merely lost which is said to some have been a miscarriage of justice.

Humans does not easily recognize their wrongs. As soon as children are age understand and express themselves, their first reaction when they make a stupidity and at risk of getting caught is to say "c'est pas me is people." And this way of attempting to evade its responsibility by diverting attention to others is never lost. The couple in the family, in the circle of friends, at work, another much more often is wrong we. It is well known. It's amazing what we invented daily to avoid losing face.

Then when it is given wrong to a party to litigation, loser admits not always easily that his request was unwarranted and that his arguments were not good, he was simply wrong. This is why this loser is often tempted to argue that his record was excellent but it is the judge who has nothing understood and took an aberrant decision. At least, as long as one speaks of the judge, we are not talking insufficiently convincing record.

This is particularly visible in family law matters, field in which former spouses are sometimes terrible war. Conflict on material goods, conflict around mutual reproaches, conflicts around children, combat is too often committed well beyond reasonable. In all cases, once the judge decided, means regular human or the woman who has been given wrong bragging that the judge had not listened, did not understand, did not take into account the interests of the child, that decision is aberrant and dangerous for minors concerned. This does not preclude other noted how the decision was appropriate, and to highlight the quality of listening and analysis of the magistrate.

Seen also in social matters. The judge gave reason to the employer, not the employee, then it is necessarily a judge "pro-patron." If it instead accepted the position of the employee, he became a judge politicized confuses legal analysis and activist support.

In criminal matters were sometimes verges the carricature. After rigged procurement were inevitably condamés by correctional courts, or recall the behaviour of the elect who a few years ago taken hand in the Fund but who without laughter and without discomfort, complained of conspiracies "politico-judiciaires", with their lawyers or even "Government of judges". The goal was then, not to speak of the offender, Act to distract and discredit judges accusing him of wanting to reach elected officials in vile purposes having nothing to do with justice. Yet the reality was much simpler. He had cheated and they were punished.

It might go a little further back and remember these entrepreneurs who criminally prosecuted because their disregard for safety rules dans l'entreprise elicited the death of employees, violently denounced red judges who dared to attack patterns. Admittedly, their discharge should not be easy to accept to enforce the law when for decades it was part of a caste of untouchables.

And it would seem that bad habits have not completely disappeared.

In any case, it probably is not enough that a person dissatisfied by a decision shouts miscarriage of Justice to be true.

Is all this of little interest, childish and trivial? Attempts first to say that nobody is fooled, the French will not be influenced without réféchir by launched claims to va soon in front of a camera or a daily newspaper, and unhelpful to dwell on these false disclosures of miscarriages of justice.

But it is not certain that the repetition of these assertions either with no effect on the way citizens perceive justice, particularly those who have never been involved in a legal proceeding and that knowing the institution that what is said in the media.

In any event, which is regrettable, is not so much the denunciation of miscarriages of Justice that do not exist. Is the frequency of such allegations makes hardest setting in light of true errors which deserve to be condemned. Justified criticism are now drowned in too many criticisms that rely on anything serious, which hides their credibility.

No, it is not enough to express a complete disagreement with a decision to demonstrate that a miscarriage of Justice has occurred. This error, you will have to seek it elsewhere.
Among the comments on justice, it is a concept which is more often than in turn: miscarriage of justice. This is why it seems useful to dig this problem in an attempt to know what really happened.

Precision is necessary at the outset that things are well clear. Judges commit mistakes, this is indisputable. It cannot be otherwise, every human being who at one time or another failures. This is therefore not here in an awkward and illusory reflex corporatist to challenge the assertion that errors occur.

But because the phrase "miscarriage of Justice" is used incorrectly and across, and too often to describe situations which correspond to any "error", it is necessary to try to sort in this order to identify what is actually the error and what is not.

I will review therefore one after another (in successive sections), some frequent statements relating to "judicial errors", to see what that is and whether it is this that it is. We will move from the simplest to the most complicated. This will allow us to identify little by little this concept.


Statement No. 2: "the decision is not consistent with reality, is a miscarriage of Justice".

This statement is mostly accurate.... in themselves part. Indeed, the courts make daily decisions which do not correspond to reality, that are out of line with what is real.

Take a first simple example already mentioned on this blog.

If you pay a large sum of money to a friend who you completely trust without the presence of witnesses and without sign of acknowledgment of written debt and whether this (soon ex-) friend doesn't make you no money on the scheduled date, you know, and he knows also fails the verbal contract of loan concluded a few months ago. In short, the money there you must truly. But if you'll see a judge and even falsely, that friend says that you've never imputed anything, and if you have nothing else to put forward your speech, judge will make a decision denying your application for condamantion this friend to reimburse you for the lent sum. And the judge wrote that there is no evidence that he long ago had a loan of money. But this is completely contrary to reality, and you may be shocked to have such a decision in the hands.

Yet there is no error. J. never take a decision based on the reality that it ignores. He decided only on elements that each party brings. But because someone describing without lie a reality at the same time can have no evidence of what he argues, the judges make very many decisions which do not correspond to what really happened. And from a judicial point of view it can be otherwise.

This discrepancy which may legitimately be perceived as unacceptable by one of the litigants, found in all areas of law.

Consider another example in social law. Known, many studies have shown, is fact and real havoc in terms of physical and mental health among employees who are victims of harassment in the workplace. A point that specific texts included in the labour code, both for moral harassment as sexual harassment.

But among employees who seize jurisdiction tribunals, although soon many people who arrive in proving fault, inter alia, have managed to get enough certificates to other members of the undertaking having witnessed facts. Therefore many decisions makes failing harassment facts which will sometimes still actually existed. And it must be very painful for the employees concerned to read a decision which is so that they understand, gives a good behaviour to the harasser patent. But then again it may not be otherwise, and in these cases it is not a miscarriage of justice but a simple lack of evidence.

The issue must be addressed in the penal field, but this is even more delicate.

Take an example to understand: rape. The current legislation allows women who have been victims of rape during childhood to complain much later. This is the question of prescription of offences (deadline in which can no longer pursue them). Of crime prescription is 10 years starting from the day where the offence is committed, but from rape lawsuits may be brought for 20 years, and to date of the offence, but from the majority of the victim. Thus a girl raped at the age of 12 may complain until its 38 years is 26 years later. You you doubt the difficulty, after such period, proving that a sexual assault.

This is why it is not uncommon that a complaint corresponding to a rape that actually existed leads to a decision of not guilty of the breached well but against whom it was not possible to gather sufficient evidence. And here again, for the victim, this may be a new and great suffering. But there may not be a culprit at any price, and this regardless of the manner in which the victim will feel a decision possibly contrary to reality.

And it goes the same for many other offences.

Am I saying that when a person prosecuted is declared not guilty, it must still have a doubt, and think that it was perhaps even and that each folder decision could be reversed if other elements had been apporés to the judge? Certainly not. Certainly not. And this for a simple reason.

Certainly among those which are declared not guilty, there are who are yet (they have committed the offence but investigators were unable to gather evidence). But most importantly, there are at least as much that really have nothing to be blamed. And for them, it would be intolerable to allow the slightest doubt. This is why all persons found not guilty by a court must be regarded as belonging to a category: persons who have not committed the offence which them. And no suspicion, no doubt can be expressed once their non-declared guilty.

The converse situation may also occur. It may happen that a person who has not committed the offence be condemned, inter alia because judges had no reason to consider that some elements that were made, apparently serious and credible and went in the sense of guilt, were in fact inaccurate or untrue. But we'll discuss this more in detail in another article.

Then finally Yes, judges make sometimes decisions which are not consistent with reality. If this can be the result of a wrong analysis of the record, if the judge can commit an error of assessment or a mistake of law, often this phenomenon occurs because the record submitted to the judge is not a reflection of the reality of "real life".

The judge is then only some pieces of the puzzle, and it cannot be concluded that it is unable to know what this puzzle would be if all the pieces had been given to him.

This is probably very difficult to accept for those who knows the reality and expected to judge the describes it as it is. Understandably.

But it is impossible to do differently. And when the judge did the best with what has been given to him, even if the decision is aberrant in reality, it is not a miscarriage of justice.

From London to Santa Fe, the shadow of the death penalty

Once again it is the telescoping of several information attracts attention.

Two new media so far.

First, we learn that in Great Britain a 57-year-old man sentenced to life for murder and rape in prison, and has spent 27 years behind bars, has finally been cleared through new biological analyses. He walked "a little wavering" tells us journalist....

What is noted in the article is the mention of a conviction based essentially on his confessions, then retracted, and the presence in the psychological man....

Finally, this man who has spent 30 years locked up for nothing was lucky. Elsewhere, at another time, the death penalty, some of which are still nostalgic could be imposed.

Then it wouldn't go to release him. No. There can be done anyway, something like go dust and Bloom his grave....


But all hope is not lost.

Indeed we learn along the State's New Mexico comes to abolish the death penalty, after fourteen other United States.

Hope that this example was soon followed there where the possibility of miscarriages of Justice impossible to catch up with leaves indifferent