Magistrates’ Court to get plea bargaining

Mr Tony Borg

Aug 11th 2011, 09:11

Before the Superior Courts -- which in practice means before the the Criminal Court -- the evidence will have been collected during the compilation of evidence, so that the Attorney General, in coming to an agreement with accused's counsel on the "appropriate" punishment, will already have all the evidence before him. So will the judge, on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of approving or otherwise the agreed punishment. If the system is to be extended to the Inferior Courts, some procedure will have to be devised to ensure that the Attorney General and the magistrate will be made aware of all the facts -- and the true facts -- surrounding the case, facts which generally never emerge from simply reading the charge sheet. One would also hope that the matter of the agreed punishment will not be left in the hands of the police, as experience has shown time and time again that their prime interest is, generally, how to get the case over as quickly as possible and tick it off as a "solved" crime. In awarding the appropriate punishment, even when this is agreed to between the State and the accused, the interests of justice, including those of the victim and of society at large (by way of the general deterrent effect of punihment), should always be borne in mind. Statistics and the backlog of cases should not be the prime consideration.