THE wholesale filing of cases in connection with murder of and attacks on protesters that took place in July鈥揂ugust and flaws in the filing of the cases stand to harm justice and allow perpetrators to escape unpunished. The police say that more than 2,500 cases have been filed until mid-November in connection with the murders and attacks during the uprising, noting that about 8,000 people have also been arrested in the cases until October. And, progress in the investigation of the cases but for the ones filed with the International Crimes Tribunal has been slow over three months and a half. In many cases, as 抖阴精品 reported on December 1, the people who have already died or are living overseas have been named accused. Cases have also been filed in connection with the 鈥榗laimed鈥� death of the people who are still alive. Whilst there are such consistencies in many cases, as law enforcement officials dealing with the cases say, in some cases, the complainants say that they do not know the people named accused in the cases. There have also been cases where students and politically-oriented people have prepared the complaints, filed with the police with the signature of the complainants.
Whilst this suggests that the reality on the ground may not only hinder justice and allow offenders to escape unpunished, the slow progress in the investigation of most of the cases may also harm justice dispensation. Such a situation would also be reflective of the proverbial case of 鈥榡ustice delayed, justice denied鈥�, for both the people who have wronged and the people who have been wronged against. Individuals and private parties, meanwhile, keep filing vexatious cases and the police processing arrests and courts rejecting prayers for bail and remanding the accused in custody. It appears that the legacy of misrule, as it happened in the past, keeps repeating itself. Experts hold brief for a high-level committee to oversee the process of justice and accountability in the cases filed in connection with the murder and attacks that took place during the uprising. Such a committee should help to curb the wholesale filing of cases, ensure investigation by an independent and high-level team, screen out vexatious cases and establish a policy and priorities for prosecution. The government should have done this or something similar to this earlier to ensure an effective justice dispensation. The home affairs adviser to the interim government says that the government has formed a committee to stop people from being harassed in vexatious cases, noting that legal steps are under way that no false or vexatious cases are filed. But the measures appear a bit delayed, enough to cause confusion and distrust.
The government should not hurry investigations and legal proceedings so as to avoid any miscarriage of justice, but it should not also allow the flurry of apparently vexatious cases, seemingly with no legal merits, to frustrate its effort for justice delivery in connection with murders of and attacks on protesters that took place during the July鈥揂ugust uprising.
