An Analysis of Miscarriages of Justice in the English Legal System

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of miscarriages of justice within the English legal system. It begins by defining the concept and its implications, differentiating it from errors of impunity. The essay then explores the main body, discussing the impact on victims, the wider society, and the justice system itself. It examines factors contributing to wrongful convictions, such as eyewitness misidentification and prosecutorial misconduct, and analyzes a case study focusing on Dr. Michael Naughton's work. The essay highlights the psychological and physical consequences faced by victims, including mental health issues, loss of trust, and financial hardships. Furthermore, it addresses the impact on the criminal justice system, emphasizing the erosion of public trust and the importance of compensation for those wrongly convicted. The essay concludes by summarizing key points and emphasizing the critical need for improvements in the legal system to prevent future miscarriages of justice and protect the rights of the accused.

Miscarriages of justice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The English legal system is the one which comprises of the common and statutory law,
each covering civil as well as criminal law. Each branch of law has its own procedures and
courts which regulate the enforcement of legislations and render justice to the victims. The
statutory law is the legislation made by the supreme law making authority which is called the
Parliament and the common law is the judge made law which is evolved from the precedents. In
the absence of any statutory law, common law forms the residual source of legislation with the
principle of stare decisis which is mainly based on the judicial decisions, usage and customs
(Hilliard, 2017). This essay shall cover the miscarriage of justice and its impact on the victim,
wider society and the justice system.
MAIN BODY
To the common people and lawyers, justice is the application of rule of law which is
certainty of applying the legal rules that have developed over the centuries in order to resolve the
dispute between the citizens and the state and citizen. If viewing from the perspective of judges,
justice is application of rule of law without any favour or fear, ill will and affection.
The justice system is one of the three branches of state which is the judiciary who is
entrusted with the role to render justice. The other two branches are the executive and legislature
which comprise of two houses of Parliament. The United Kingdom does not have its written
Constitution rather its principles are derived from the statutory and common law. The main
consequence of lack of Constitution is that legal and political institutions have been evolved
since 1066 and also there is no separation of power and functions among the three branches
which are Legislature, Executive And Judiciary. There has been the over lapping of power in
between the branches of state.
Out of three branches, the judiciary is the one which administers the justice according to
the law. The term is being used broadly to refer to the judges, courts, adjudicators, magistrates
and the other personnels who supports in running the system. The courts are the one who have
the role of applying the law, settling the dispute and punish the law breakers as per the law
(Mujuzi, 2019).
Miscarriage of justice which is also called the wrongful conviction mainly occurs when
the person is being convicted and also punished for the crime have not actually committed it. In

the criminal justice system, it is common that mistakes are bound to come and the factual guilty
shall escape from the conviction and innocent shall be falsely judged. There has been devastating
consequences of the errors of justice for the people who are convicted wrongly and the future
and existing victims of perpetrators who may avoid conviction. This may affect the beliefs and
public confidence in administration of justice.
The term miscarriage of justice must not be confused with the errors of impunity which
mainly applies to the cases where the guilty person is set free. The former is defined as the gross
unfair outcome in judicial proceeding when the defendant is convicted despite the lack of
evidence on essential element of crime. Its ambit is wide enough to cover other areas apart from
wrongful conviction which includes wrongful arrest, wrongful sentence and wrongful charges.
There are mainly two types in which miscarriage of justice occurs, one is which is committed
intentionally and venally where people try to commit it for their professional or personal
agendas and the other occurs unintentionally or accidentally by the fallible humans who are just
attempting to do their jobs at their best (Strange and Hetherington, 2020).
In general, there are two kinds of miscarriage of justice of which first is error of due
process and the other is error of impunity. The former involves the unwarranted harassment,
conviction or detention and the latter is lapse of justice which allows the culpable offender to
remain at the large.
There are two methods in which the prevalence of the wrongful conviction can be
estimated. The first is the exonerations in which the guilty verdict is vacated or annulled by
judge after the new evidence is brought forward by proves the guilty person as innocent. The
second is the self report which allows examination of all or any crime where the conviction have
happened wrongfully.
It is rightly said that it is better to escape the ten people who are guilty than convicting
one innocent. The society which is just would never charge or convict the innocent party and the
guilty must always be punished. Miscarriage of justice is the routine and is considered as the
major problem in society at large as law is something to which the people mostly respect and
abide by and if the society cannot trust it then would be problematic. In the most common
jurisdictions, the p4roblem of the wrongful conviction have become the accepted reality which
shows the failure of the criminal justice process (.Toth, 2020). There are many factors which
leads and contributes to the wrongful conviction which includes the identification of the

erroneous eye witness, misconduct of the prosecution and police, false confession, etc. Tjis leads
to violation of the rights of person who has been accused of the crime unnecessarily. Although
miscarriage of justice is not limited to wrongful conviction as it is the product of the adversarial
system which prioritises the speedy justice over the rigorous examination of facts so that truth
can be brought.
The persons who have been wrongfully convicted are the victims of miscarriage of
justice as they have spend time in prisons but there are other ways also in which they are
victimised as the system may release them from prison but they refuses to say that they are
innocent of crime. While they are in prisons, they are not placed in the programs where they can
get prepared for re adjustment to outside world as they are released long before their released
date which is anticipated (Pickett, 2020).
There is a case study of Dr Michael Naughton on the wrongful conviction and its impact
of victim and policy reform internationally and in UK. There are five impact under this case
study which occurs mainly and wholly since the year 2008. The first is generation of shift in the
thinking by Parole Board about prisoners in 2008 who maintain innocence that triggered the
reforms in prison policy on treatment of prisoners. Second is establishment of 26 innocence
projects in the universities of UK, third is shaping and supporting working practices of the
innocence project by creation of mandatory protocol which is instituted in the year 2008. fourth
is raising the media and public awareness and issue of the wrongful conviction and fifth is
influencing the policy of criminal justice in Australia and United States. The study of Naughton
have provided the potential harm in the criminal justice process and functional flaws in the
system (Mahmood, 2019).
It identified the tripartite connection in public crisis of the confidence around the alleged
miscarriage of the justice and the evidence in form of successful appeals against the criminal
conviction. There is also the risk assessment method which is being adopted by Parole board and
prison service which is called the parole deal. It result in indeterminate sentenced prisoners who
are unable to get release on the parole because of innocence stance. There is a constructive
approach developed by Naughton where it assessed the prisoners who maintain innocence by
active engagement with Parole board and prison service on one hand and the victims of
wrongful conviction on other (Kabra, 2019).

There has been a major impact of the miscarriage of justice on the victim who is being
victimised for the offence which is not being committed by him/ her. There are psychological
consequences being faced by it which includes many immense feeling of guilt, helplessness, fear,
depression and even devastation. These are serious effect on the victim. Whenever an individual
is found victim for the wrongful conviction, there is a serious effect on its mental well being
which includes the trauma and depression. These serious effects are not only faced by victim but
there is indirect impact on the family of victim. Once an individual is being victimised for the
wrongful conviction, there are symptoms of mental health placed which are upon the re-entry
like those of the torture survivors such as anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, depression and
many other. The victim looses the trust on the criminal justice process and expects no public
support in return. They are subject to hostile environment as when an indiviudal is subject to
wrongful conviction, the society looks at the individual with different perspective and it becomes
difficult for him/ her to survive in such hostile environment. The life of prison may result in
making the person unaccustomed for making its own decision. There violence of the prison may
result in social distancing, lack of positive social skills an even the emotional aloofness
(Samuels, 2018).
There is lack of social support from the outside world which lowers the self esteem of the
individual. The life of prison have nowadays become more restrictive due to policies of prison
and the over population in prison have also spread the wide effects on the innocent people
especially as they are forced to endure all adverse conditions. Moreover, the memories of the
prison may become traumatising which may result in trouble sleeping, lack of concentration and
even re current nightmares. The person may also become angry, irritable and even hyper vigilant.
Apart from psychological, there are many physical consequence on the victim of
miscarriage of justice which includes poor medical care and even leaving many prisoners
untreated. Moreover, there are many affects on the financial factor of victim which includes the
loss of career or education opportunity (Bingham, 2018).
Through the miscarriage of justice, there has been a severe impact on the criminal justice
system as people have lost their trust on the ability of this system to render justice. By increasing
cases of wrongful conviction, there has been threat of fear, anxiety and loss of trust in the
criminal justice system. If an individual is being wrongfully convicted and is exonerated, the

victim of the original crime might experience the feeling of helplessness, fear, depression and
even devastation.
Alone one factor or aspect cannot result in miscarriage of justice, rather there are many
aspects such as improper forensic evidence, eyewitness misidentification, false testimony,
ineffective legal counsel, false confession and many other which contribute in the wrongful
conviction. Any loophole in their working may affect the whole system which may lead to
worse impact on the society as well as the victim (Vincent, 2018).
In United Kingdom, any person who is jailed and its conviction is quashed, it is entitled
to the compensation for the time period in which he/ she was incarcerated this is presently
limited to the amount of maximum £1000000 who have been incarcerated for more than ten
years and for the amount of maximum £500000 for other cases. These amount must be subject to
the deduction of food cost and the prison cell during such time period. It was reported by the
chairman of the Criminal Cases review Commission that the biggest reason for the miscarriage
of justice is failure to disclose the vital evidence (Widodo, 2017).
Before offering amount of compensation to the victim, the following factor must be taken
into consideration which includes the financial background, damage caused to health of victim
and the emotional harm caused. The human rights Act of 1998 provides the right to every person
of fair trail, freedom of expression and speech and liberty which is prevented due to miscarriage
of justice. It is a proven fact that every person is presumed to be innocent until it is found guilty.
Article 10 of the European Convention on human rights states the right of freedom of speech and
expression which helps the person to get access with people who may help him in trail and
provide the scope in order to ask for justice like media. It is a fact that miscarriage of justice may
arise if the court is very much hesitant in taking the decision or in reaching any conclusion of the
case. Human rights can help in avoiding such things but the decision rests on discretion of court
only. Moreover, the principle of natural justice also plays an important in preventing the
miscarriage of justice (Butler, 2018).
Hence, it can be said that the it is not the welcoming step as it contravenes the human
rights. It alarms many interrogations for judiciary also. The main purpose of the judiciary is to
remedify the injustice and miscarriage of justice erases this purpose as it results in injustice on
part of party which is involved in case.

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above essay that miscarriage of justice can be referred to as the
failure in rendering the justice as it symbolises failure of pronouncement as to what is just and
right. It occurs when the innocent person is held guilty and the original accused is escaped from
this scene. There has been a major impact of the miscarriage of justice on the victim as well as
the innocent person as there is constant feeling of fear and depression in their mind. There is
physical, financial and psychological loss of the innocent party as it has to face the mental
trauma in the prison and also outside the prison. The career and educational opportunity is lost
and also there is unfair and worst medical care being provided to the innocent person in prison.
Moreover, there is psychological consequences being faced by victim and innocent party as they
feel the post trauma stress disorder, depression, anxiety and devastation.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bingham, A., 2018. Christopher Hilliard. The Littlehampton Libels: A Miscarriage of Justice
and a Mystery about Words in 1920s England.
Butler, E.R., 2018. A Miscarriage of Justice: Courts-Martial: In Camera and the Legal Response
to the 1916 Rising. UC Dublin L. Rev., 18, p.75.
Hilliard, C., 2017. The Littlehampton libels: a miscarriage of justice and a mystery about words
in 1920s England. Oxford University Press.
Kabra, S.G., 2019. Medical Practice and Law: Miscarriage of Justice. ASCI Journal of
Management, 48(2).
Mahmood, K.S., 2019. Rethinking miscarriage of justice.
Mujuzi, J.D., 2019. The Right to Compensation for Wrongful Conviction/Miscarriage of Justice
in International Law. International Human Rights Law Review, 8(2), pp.215-244.
Pickett, J., 2020. Miscarriage of Justice in the Commonwealth. Journal of Prisoners on Prisons,
29(1&2), pp.75-76.
Samuels, A., 2018. Gilfoyle: A miscarriage of justice?. Medicine, Science and the Law, 58(4),
pp.265-267.
Strange, C. and Hetherington, L., 2020. Murderess or Miscarriage of Justice? A Case of Husband
Poisoning in Early Federation New South Wales. Australian Historical Studies, 51(3),
pp.299-323.
Toth, Z.J., 2020. Miscarriage of Justice. In Changing Attitudes Towards the Death Penalty (pp.
35-47). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Vincent, D., 2018. The Littlehampton Libels: A Miscarriage of Justice and a Mystery about
Words in 1920s England, by Christopher Hilliard.
Widodo, 2017. Suspension of the Death Penalty Execution to Anticipate Adverse Effect of
Miscarriage of Justice in Indonesia. JL Pol'y & Globalization, 63, p.46.