Canadian Criminal Justice System Analysis

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In Canadian society, the Criminal Justice System’s power is to responsibly protect and serve the community. Therefore, the fundamental purpose of the Criminal Justice System is to maintain order within society and punish those who commit criminal acts (Robinson & Cahill, 2005). An innocent individual wrongfully convicted of a criminal act infringes the fundamental rights of the person. The sole purpose of the Criminal Justice System is to restrain the people who commit a criminal offence and held accountable for their actions. Therefore, the Criminal Justice System should not restrain the freedom of any innocent individual (Robinson & Cahill, 2005). For many years, the Criminal Justice System developed rules and procedures on the basis of convicting the guilty and acquitting the innocent. The rules and …show more content…
Throughout the trial, an accused person is presumed innocent and the prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Truth finding process solely depends on the minds of the actors within the Criminal Justice System and therefore, if any problems with evidence gathering occur, wrongful convictions will arise. However, Bruce MacFarlane argues that the Criminal Justice System has a lot more protection against wrongful convictions than any other Criminal Justice System in the world (MacFarlane, 2008, p. 2-5). Safeguards such as the right to counsel or the right to be tried by a jury or judge exist; but most importantly, the Charter of Rights and Freedom guarantees a significant number of rights to the accused person. These rights are enforced by the courts at all time, and if the accused felt these rights were infringed; an appeal may be brought up to a Court of Appeal. Therefore, if truth finding or rights are infringed, wrongful convictions can occur (MacFarlane, 2008, p.