Cour Issues Analysis - Research Paper Example

Moreover, there is a backlog of cases in the judiciary; this backlog is perhaps an attribute to the vicious cycle of crime fueled by the inefficiency of the judiciary to exercise deterrence in administering sentences. The aim of the penal system is to exercise deterrence and retribution to offenders and other like-minded individuals. It is therefore the role of the judiciary to uphold this principle and protect the rule of law. In that regard, this paper shall analyze the past, current and future issues affecting the court system.

The justice system is faces a myriad of issues currently. Apart from the normal difficulty of administering justice and protecting the rule of law, courts are facing difficulties with the victim’s rights issues and translation issues due to language barriers. The most severe of issues faced by the justice system, courts, and administrators is the enormous task of handling huge chunks of cases piling everyday in the prosecutor’s desk. Perhaps this is the major reason why prosecutors are under immense pressure, resulting in dropping cases daily.

Nevertheless, the courts in current times are marred with a premise of delayed cases that never seem to see their day in court. This situation befits the legal maxim as quoted by William Ewart that justice delayed is justice denied. However, court administration may at times see it fit to rush the court proceedings to clear up the backlog and congestion of the cases scheduled for hearing. Dire consequences may result from such haste to hear and determine cases, since court cases affect human lives, and due care is paramount in discharging justice.

After all, courts were not fashioned to operate in such a hasty manner. It is obvious that the criminal justice system is overburdened; this has in turn exerted a ripple effect in the prosecutor’s office. More and more felony cases are dumped as plea bargains. This is both good and bad. Since the perpetrator of a felony accepts a plea bargain for a lesser charge and gets a lesser penalty for that charge. Although it is a beneficial tact in time conservation, but it grossly, undermine the purpose of existence of any judicial system anywhere.

The purpose of the court system is to provide justice, and punish the wrongdoer. Furthermore, in the discharging of justice, the judicial system has a role of deterrence and retribution via the correction facilities. Therefore, if deterrence from crime is a function of the judicial system, then it should not merely dispense lesser sentence due to time management. Proper judgment should be administered to console and restitute the injured party. While it is beneficial for the court to manage their time through plea bargains, criminal offenders and other likeminded individuals are not effectively deterred from criminal activities since consequences are less severe.

The prevailing uninhabitable conditions of correction facilities due to overcrowding, communicable diseases prevalence, intrinsic violence, and being strikingly counterproductive schools for crime that churn out hardened convicts (Muraskin, R. & Roberts, R. 2009), contributes to the courts reluctant state from issuing harsher sentences. Nevertheless, the tendency of the courts to ignore the deterrence factor of sentencing, has contributed to a vicious cycle of criminal activity that perhaps has contributed to the heightened backlog of cases.

This is increasingly causing many challenges to the