Constitutional Law. Due Process. Prisoners' Rights. Ninth Circuit Holds That the Right to Procreate Survives Incarceration. Gerber v. Hickman, 264 F.3d 882 (9th Cir. 2001)

The core function of the judiciary is the administration of justice through delivering judgments and other decisions. The crucial role for its acceptance and legitimization by not only lawyers, but also individulas (parties) and the hole society plays judicial reasoning. It should reflect on judge’s independence within the exercise of his office and show also judicial self-restraint or activism. The axiology and the standards of proper judicial reasoning are anchored both in constitutional and supranational law and case-law. Polish Constitutional Tribunal derives a duty to give reasoning from the right to a fair trial – right to be heard and bring own submissions before the court (Article 45 § 1 of the Constitution), the right to appeal against judgments and decisions made at first stage (Article 78), the rule of two stages of the court proceedings (Article 176) and rule of law clause (Article 2), that comprises inter alia right to due process of law and the rule of legitimate expactation / the protection of trust (Vertrauensschutz). European Court of Human Rights derives this duty to give reasons from the guarantees of the right to a fair trial enshrined in Article 6 § 1 of European Convention of Human Rights. In its case-law the ECtHR, taking into account the margin of appreciation concept, formulated a number of positive and negative requirements, that should be met in case of proper reasoning. The obligation for courts to give sufficient reasons for their decisions is also anchored in European Union law. European Court of Justice derives this duty from the right to fair trial enshrined in Articles 6 and 13 of the ECHR and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Standards of the courts reasoning developed by Polish constitutional court an the European courts (ECJ and ECtHR) are in fact convergent and coherent. National judges should take them into consideration in every case, to legitimize its outcome and enhance justice delivery.

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Introducing Victim Impact Statement in India: Reconceptualizing Victim Status

Journal of Victimology and Victim Justice ◽

10.1177/2516606921991757 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 251660692199175

Author(s):

Devansh Dubey ◽

Payas Jain

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Subjective Experience ◽

Due Process ◽

Not Given ◽

Therapeutic Tool ◽

Victim Status ◽

Victim Impact Statement ◽

The World ◽

Due Process Of Law ◽

The Right

The right to fair trial is inherent in the concept of due process of law, which now forms part of Article 21 of Indian Constitution after the Maneka Gandhi judgement. Pertinently attached with the same comes the responsibility of the criminal system to treat victims with increased awareness and sensitivity. However, the established convention shows that in planning and developing administration of criminal justice, proper attention is not given to the victims of crime in achieving goals of criminal justice; the major cause of it being that a victim is heard only as a witness not as a victim. A credible response to the said issue has emerged in the form of victim impact statement (VIS) in the modern legal system across the world. With that being said, the researchers through this article try to deduce the need for incorporating a VIS in India through the various jurisprudential understandings of what it means to be a victim, including the gap between the subjective experience of the sufferer and the interpretation of the same by others, and what restorative justice would mean to heal a victim. Establishing upon the same premise of victim status, the researchers try to suggest that the introduction of VIS, with the primary purpose of it being a therapeutic tool and not an instrument of changing the course of justice, will serve to make us reconsider our contours of a ‘victim’.

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