Female Victims of Miscarriage of Justices - Dissertation Example

Laws have male characteristics and target male crime, thus overlooking the realities of women's lives with regards to criminal justice. This generates the "generalizability problem”1 where patriarchal values thus serve masculine needs2. Introduction The very idea of miscarriage of justice is discouraged by every legal system that stands as a bastion to democracy. Every civilised government has recognised the need to ensure that all its citizens are treated fairly within the due process of law.

For example, the Criminal Justice Act 1991 provides3 that: “The Secretary of State shall in each year publish such information as he considers expedient for the purpose of facilitating the performance of those engaged in the administration of justice to avoid discriminating against any persons on the ground of race or sex or any other improper ground.” In attempting to establish a fitting legal system that incorporates the democratic principles of justice, it is of importance that the issue of gender differences is examined.

“Despite claims to the contrary, masculinist epistemologies are built upon values that promote masculine needs and desires, making all others invisible”4– making women almost invisible within the justice system, and this can easily lead to miscarriage of justice. MacKinnon states, “For women to affirm difference, when difference means dominance, as it does with gender, means to affirm the qualities and characteristics of powerlessness”5. This is very true of our societies even though women are mistreated by the same laws that were established because of care and concern.

The law therefore lays emphasis to equality, but uses a masculine standard as a threshold for enforcement. Lahey calls this “equality with a vengeance.”6 Aims of study The aim of this paper is to explore femininism and miscarriage of justice from a criminal law perspective. This paper does not engage in a dispute about whether women’s right should be different from men in the criminal justice system. The underlying premise is that rights are universal. The paper simply uses the universalism and cultural relativism debate as an entry point to a discussion of ethical considerations of women in the criminal law system of justices.

It will attempt to demonstrate how cultural differences persist between man and women. “Difference in this instance is set up as a duality: woman is different from man, and this difference is seen as a deficiency because she is not man”7. The paper will therefore critically and comparatively consider how the law has attempted to reconcile the rights of women at criminal trials with what obtains in different legal cultures and their resultant effect on females as victims of miscarriage of justice.

Analysis I will analyze my paper from the perception of these enquires: What is miscarriage of justice? Miscarriage of justices is considered as a situation in which ‘the rights of others are not effectively or proportionately protected by the state’8. The main keyword that makes an act constitute a form of miscarriage of justice is “failure to act”. How is miscarriage of justice manifested? The victimization of women makes access to justice illusory, amounting to miscarriage of justice.

Access to justice is reasoned to be a priority enjoyed by