Criminal law is that law which controls crimes. It is very important to understand the meaning of crime. The crime is an offence against state and in India it is governed by Indian Penal Code (IPC) 1860, Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) 1973, and Evidence Act, 1872.
The ultimate aim of Criminal Law is protection of right to personal liberty against invasion by others, protection of weak against strong, law abiding against lawless, peace against violent. James Madison writes in his book The Federalist that”if men were angels no government would be necessary”. It is a primary function of government to protect the basic right to life and property. The state has to give protection against lawlessness, disorderly behavior, violent acts and fraudulent deeds of other. Liberty cannot exist without protection of basic rights of citizen by the government.
There was no criminal law in uncivilized society. Every man was liable to be attacked on his person or property at any time by anyone. The person attacked either succumbed or overpowered his opponent. “A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, a life for a life” was the forerunner of criminal justice. As time advanced and gave birth to the archaic criminal law. For a long time the application of these principal remains with the parties themselves, but gradually this function came to be performed by the state.
In our civilized society we governed by the criminal laws which includes different-different acts and codes such as Indian Penal Code (IPC) 1860, Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) 1973, and Evidence Act, 1872. In our system, it is a prosecution that establishes the allegation on accused. Our criminal law considers presumption of innocence in favor of accused. Every man presumed to be innocent until he proved guilt.
Our best criminal lawyer acting as a defense lawyer in criminal trial recognize a burden of proof and presumption of innocence as an effective tool to prove innocence of an individual who is accused in a criminal trial. The concept of burden of proof is one of the most important contributions of Roman law to the Criminal Law Jurisprudence. This principal is based on fairness, good sense and practical utility accepted in English Common Law.
In Criminal law, one golden thread is always being seen that it is duty of prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt. However, the cardinal law of Criminal Law Jurisprudence that the burden rests on prosecution of proving its case has been deviated in several statutes.
Under section 105 to 114-A of Indian Evidence Act, burden of proof is shifted to accused. While the concept of “presumption of innocence” maintains its pivotal position in the Criminal Jurisprudence, there is steady shifting of burden of proof to tackle new problems such as growing social economic problem, emerge of new and graver crime, terrorism, organized crime, poor rate of conviction, practical difficulties in securing the evidence, etc.
Over the years all the branches of law have grown enormously. The laws have multiplied, judicial principal have grown and lot of literature and information for study in each of these branches. It is not easy for every judge to be able to muster all the branches. That is why in the legal professions many leading lawyers specialize in one field of law or other. There are lawyers who are specialized in Labour law, Administrative law, Divorce Law, Civil laws, Corporate laws, Companies law or Constitutional laws, etc. There is therefore, growing need for lawyer to specialize in these emerging of law.
Criminal law has a special feature and is different from Civil law in many aspects. Best criminal lawyer who is specialized in Criminal law will take less time compare to a lawyer who is not expertise in Criminal law. Specialization contributes to better quality of decisions, consistency and certainty. Speedy and quality justice is being the need of hour and is desirable to assign the criminal cases to specialist criminal lawyer.
Author is Advocate at Supreme court
Shakti Narayanan
Founder legalmax india.
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