Monday, January 13, 2020

Rethinking Evidence and recording depositions.

We are living in a world where Artificial intelligence is fastly developing. One key area which the judges are having trouble with is to distinguish between an honest witness and a dishonest witness. There are witnesses who can lie without a bait of an eye. Some witnesses imagine and recreate facts, events and things which never existed and present them as if that is the truth.  It is always difficult to find out the truth from the ordinary look at the face of these witnesses and also by normal cross examination especially when the witnesses are coached. 
Another big issue in relying on oral depositions is the twisting of depositions by intermediaries including police and counsels. Twisting can occur for a number of reasons including a genuine concern for the betterment of the party. But these concerns are a challenge to the judicial process in finding out the truth. One of the major challenges in the current Indian judicial system is the practice of taking down in writing the testimony of witnesses. The practice of taking down in writing the deposition of witnesses is the advent of modern criminal justice system. While this practice helped to capture the depositions of witnesses more accurately than relying on the memory of the officials involved in the criminal justice process, at an era when even photography was new technology, much water has flown since then. Taking down depositions in writing has the following disadvantages:
✓ Written words does not capture emotional aspects including tone and accent that accompany the spoken words.
✓ Writing of spoken words by another person will invariably involve the mental exercise of the person taking down the evidence, which may tend to twist the actual spoken words and give them an entirely different perspective.
✓The difference in dialects can mislead the reader.
✓ Taking down something in writing involve an exercise of discretion by the writer who may in the exercise of such discretion include things not intended by the speaker.
What is the way forward? Technology has developed many tools for accurately capturing even  the emotional aspects of the speaker. (See https://youtu.be/CVClHLwv-4I, https://youtu.be/lDC90ObdMEs ). If all agencies including crime detection and justice administration team uses these AI models to record the deposition of witnesses using video cameras with face recognition technology capable of capturing and analysing emotional aspects of the speaker, the error margin in criminal justice system can be reduced to a great extent. Further recording of oral testimony by crime detection agencies and using it in evidence instead of testing the memory of the witnesses by requiring them to accurately remember the sequence of events at a future date would help in removing trauma of the victims, especially of violent crimes, in recreating what they went through at the time of crime several times and giving chances for distortion. It will also help the criminal justice administration mechanism to accurately capture the oral testimony of witnesses including the tonal variations, dialectical features and the emotional aspects attached to the deposition enabling judges to accurately decide regarding the truth of the depositions.
Imagine a scenario where the victims and witnesses's depositions are recorded by the police under s.161 CrPC using a face detection camera which captures emotional aspects while the victims/witnesses speak. The police can use this to analyse the accuracy of the deposition to arrive at a conclusion regarding the occurrence. Immediately on recording this video will get uploaded into the criminal justice server kept centrally under the management of judiciary to avoid tampering. This recording with all metadata can be shared to the various stakeholders including medical professionals who conduct medical examination of the witnesses. The doctors while making physical examination of the victims can assess this recording and use it to compare with the results of their examination to arrive at an opinion. The original recording of depositions can also be done at the hospital while the doctors conduct medical examination in a similar way using a software which uploads the recording to the judicial server which can then be used by police also. The doctors can upload their report online, which can be accessed by the police and other investigation agencies. The scene of occurance can be captured using a  Geo Information enabled camera (see:https://youtu.be/CK9m0Sn37v0,  https://youtu.be/mIaG6EDBtao). Once the process of investigation is complete, the entire video files with metadata can be shared with the court along with report under s.173(8) Cr.P.C. A copy of this file can be shared with the accused digitally with or without copying facility. If any files contain sensitive material that may affect privacy of individuals, the investigation agency can indicate the same and the said file will not be shared. Upon completion of formality when the case comes up for trial, the witnesses can be cross examined based on their video recorded testimony, including the data of analysis of emotional aspects. These depositions can also be recorded using facial recognition camera so that there can be a real time analysis of the emotional aspects revealed on such recording. The original depositions recorded by the police can be used for chief examination instead of repeating the deposition. A witness need to be called for cross examination only if the defence counsel seeks to clarify something from that witness by a written application. If a witness is not called for cross examination, the deposition recorded by police should be accepted in evidence and the same should be used for any evidencial purpose. If a witness is called but the witness fails to appear either in person or through video conferencing after proper service of summons, the deposition has to be discarded in toto. This will save a lot of time in judicial process and will enhance the quality and efficiency of criminal justice system.

Rethinking Bail

Bail is the rule and jail is an exception. However, the present rules regarding bail are very outdated and requires amendment. At present media and public considers that a person arrested for an offence is guilty, and granting of bail is to an extent considered as almost equivalent to acquittal. Fundamental legal principle that a person is presumed innocent until found guilty is often forgotten by the police, press and consequently media. This infact is a result of the rigour of the colonial era bail provisions. Even though the purpose of custody is to ensure that a person is made available for investigation enquiry and trial, in popular myth it is the first confirmation of guilt of the accused. Keeping a person accused of an offence in custody affects his fundamental right to life guaranteed to him under Art. 21 of the Constitution. Further in India, the arresting officer himself deals with the entire case, which has the potential of skewing facts for a multitude of reasons including self aggrandisement. Hence the following suggestions are made to improve the bail provisions-
(a) The investigation and arrest and custody shall be done by separate officials. There should be at least one investigation and one arresting and custody officer in each police station. Investigation and Arresting and Custody officer should have distinct hierarchy and invariably arresting and custody officer shall be superior in rank to the investigation officer.
(b) In case of grave urgency only the investigation officer has right to arrest. In such cases, immediately after the arrest the arresting officer shall hand over the custody of the arrested person to the arresting officer.
(c) All arrested persons shall be entitled to get released immediately on bail if such person meets the following criteria - 
 (1) The offence alleged is not punishable with more than 7 years imprisonment.
 (2). The arrested person is capable of and agrees to cooperate with investigation, inquiry and trial and for the purpose agrees to
(i) submit to surveillance of any lawful nature by law enforcement agencies 
(ii) furnish such persons and near relatives complete identification details including physical address, telephone, email,social media addresses and agree further that the communication to any of the given addresses is sufficient service of notice to such person for any purpose during investigation inquiry and trial, including appeal, that any change in any of the addresses shall be promptly informed to law enforcement agencies and the forums before which the case is subsequently put up, that such person does not require any further notice than intimation through such addresses including social media accounts email and phone numbers, that in case of any failure to appear in pursuance to a notice addressed to any of the addresses or accounts furnished by such person, such person agrees to forfeit his right to bail until such time that such person is able to convince the arresting officer where the case is in investigation stage and the forum where the case is pending that such person will cooperate with the legal process, and that such person also forefeits all his rights as a citizen, including right to property and right to obtain and keep a passport upon failure to appear before the investigation officer or the forum as the case may be provided the forum where his case is pending can restore the rights upon his appearance.such person appears before the court.
(iii) agree further that he shall not involve in any wilful criminal activity during the period of bail failing which his right to bail is forefeited.
(3). The offence does not involve violent crimes of serious nature punishable with more than 3 years or crimes that affect psychological aspects of the victims.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Justice Administration Reforms: Bullet Point Agenda

Talks are going on regarding reform of procedural and evidentiary law to bring more efficacy to justice administration process in India.(https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/india/story/home-ministry-criminal-laws-overhaul-ipc-crpc-evidence-act-ndps-1625600-2019-12-05). Several opinions are also expressed regarding how and what reforms should be made in Criminal justice system. (See
(https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-road-map-for-criminal-justice-reforms/article29760563.ece/amp/) &(https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/cursor/why-there-is-an-urgent-need-to-reform-indias-judicial-system/). This article is a an attempt to iterate the urgently needed reforms and put up an agenda for reform of Indian legal system.
Purpose of Reform:
1. Impact of reforms: Need for legal impact analysis
2. Faster and efficient procedure
3. Evolving Criminal Justice administration as a service to society rather than as an instrument of sovereign authority.
4. Transparency in procedures.
5. Better respect to rights of:
5.1. Victims and their relatives and those interested in their welfare.
5.2. Witnesses.
5.3. Accused, their relatives and those interested in reforming and integrating criminal into society as a person useful to society
5.4. Law Enforcement officials and their families.
5.5. Judiciary
5.6. Law Implementation officials and their families.
5.7. Society as a whole.
6. Restoring faith in justice administration system.
7. Evolution of clear and measurable goals in each limb of criminal justice administration.
8. Introduction of social auditing into criminal justice administration without succumbing to mob psychology.
9.  Providing protocols for adaptation of technological advance in evidence collection and presentation before judicial forums automatically.
10. Adaptation of  justice administration system to the changing pace of social expectations.

 Reform Agenda Bullets:
1. Simple, uncomplicated and understandable language.
2. Simplified procedure in:
2.1. Arrest
2.2. Bail: 
2.3. Processes
2.4. Trial
2.4.1. Appearance of parties including summons.
2.4.2. Pre trial procedure.
2.4.3. Trial procedure
2.4.2. Post trial procedure.
3. Integrating technology into criminal justice administration to:
3.1. Transparency
3.2. Simplicity: 
3.4. Efficacy
3.5. Costs
Technology has low shelf life. It is most important that there should be a protocol where technology is prima facie relied and used rather than suspected. The orientation of our justice administration system should be to accept technology till it is proved disadvantageous or tampered. Ideally the provisions of Evidence Act should be amended to incorporate this principle and restrictive provisions should be removed. Suggested wordings are:
It shall be presumed that all products of technology and all electronic documents and electronic and software imagery, audio and video products accurately gives the outcomes that they are intended to and promises to achieve unless it is proved other wise. 
3.6. Eliminating unnecessary exercise of discretion to avoid delays.
3.7. Faster dispensation of justice.
3.8. Avoiding unnecessary deployment/ use of human resources.
3.9. Reducing unnecessary clerical work.
4. Improving and simplifying the court procedures and structures.
5. Simplified procedure for accepting evidence.
6. Reform of bail mechanism to ensure:
6. 1. Liberty of individual irrespective of financial and/or social status
6.2. Purposive use of bail to ensure liberty.
6.3. Simplified bail procedures
6.4. Avoiding unnecessary detention.except where:
6.4.1. Accused has the potential 
6.4.1.a. to harm the victim
6.4.1.b. tamper with evidence.
6.4.1.c. abscond from process of law.
6.5. Managing productivity of undertrial prisoners.
7. Better methods for identification of persons involved in all stages of criminal justice administration.
8. Better management of victim expectations in the justice administration mechanism.
9. Management of reputation and privacy of all parties in criminal justice administration including victims, accused, witnesses, law enforcement, judiciary and prison management officials.
10. Avoiding multiple recitals of their trauma by victims by use of technology.


S. 164 Cr.P.C. and Some Challenges

  S. 164 (1) -Note . S. 164 Cr.P.C reads as follows: "(1) Any Metropolitan Magistrate or Judicial Magistrate may, whether or not...