Research Proposal on Judgement Analysis of Murder Cases given by different courts Dr. Shuchita Sharmin 8/20/2018 Research Proposal on Judgement Analysis of Murder Cases given by different courts Table of Content SlContent Page a. Title ——————- 2 b. Abstract ——————- 2 c. Introduction ——————- 2 d. Statement of the Problem ——————- 3 e.
Objective ——————- 4 f. Conceptual Framework ——————- 4 A. Stages of a Criminal Case ——————- 5 B. Possible Causes for Delay in Criminal Cases ——————- 7 C. OECD/ DAC Definition of Evaluation: A Model to Evaluate the Situation ——————- 8 g. Significance ——————- 10 h.
Methodology ——————- 10 A. Approach & Strategy ——————- 10 B. Sampling Technique & Size ——————- 11 C. Target Population ——————- 12 D.
Sought Data Type ——————- 12 E. Primary Data Collection ——————- 12 F. Secondary Data Collection ——————- 13 G. Data Analysis Method: Statistical Framework ——————- 13 H. Data Validation ——————- 13 i. Research Team ——————- 13 j.
Time Frame/ Action Plan ——————- 14 k. Financial Proposal ——————- 14 l. Budget ——————- 14 m. Reference ——————- 14 Title: Judgement Analysis of Murder Cases given by different courts. Alternate Title 1: Towards an in-depth understanding of judgment process of murder cases at selective district courts of Bangladesh. Alternate Title 2: From FIR to Verdict: Murder cases in selected district courts of Bangladesh.
Abstract: Being one of the three pillars of a democratic country, judiciary in People’s Republic of Bangladesh plays an extreme crucial role in running the country smoothly. Included into the core responsibility of this department are trials and judgement of both criminal and civil cases. Among all others, criminal cases especially cases like murder are served with utmost priority and therefore, demands solid judgment within a competitive (effective and efficient) time frame. In Bangladesh though, time taken for such murder cases vary widely. Despite the neutrality and firmness of judgment, this elapsed time thus poses question about the effectiveness of the whole process sometimes.
In such reality, OECD/ DAC definition of evaluation used as the analytical framework, and recognizing the importance of judiciary and especially the impacts of such prolonged trial process specifically in murder cases, this study attempts to analyze the realities thoroughly, find the causes behind the situation stakeholder-wise (police as in investigation or other, judge, lawyers of both ends etc.), correlation among the factors and finally derive suggestion to improve such situation in a sustainable manner. Both qualitative as well as quantitative data will be used for data collection whereas, correlation will be determined using SPSS 23. Introduction: “Judiciary is an indispensable organ of government. Its importance cannot be over emphasized. Any society without a judiciary system is bound to face chaos and anarchy.
In a nation where the judiciary is weak or not independent its people might be confronted with injustice and all kinds of intimidation. The judiciary organ performs several roles to ensure stability of a society. Some of its statutory functions amongst others include: conflicts resolution, punish people who violate the laws of the land, interpret the constitution of the land and check the activities of the other organs of the government namely: the executive and legislature.” (Thenewswriterng.com, 2018).Understanding the significance of judiciary’s role, variance in its stated service delivery hence may create serious disturbance within any nation. “Absence of judiciary system could create uncomfortable situation in any given country. Democracy as the government of the masses cannot stand in such as a country. The long closure of the courts could force people who have grievances to seek justice elsewhere other than the constitutional means of looking for redress in law courts.” (Thenewswriterng.com, 2018).In reference to the lastly mentioned statement, unwanted lengthiness of judgment procedure definitely is a serious issue that needs to be addressed with extreme priority.
Such situation creates grave crisis when the considered cases be critically major ones like murder. This study, therefore, will analyze stakeholder-wise (police as in investigation or other, judge, lawyers of both defense as well as public); the present scenario against the above mentioned allegation of prolonged murder cases; frequency and causes, correlation and finally derive suggestion to address them in a sustainable manner. Statement of the Problem: Focusing over the study topic again, judgment analysis often brings poor histories prolonged trial record for even murder cases. Some of the recent news reports in such are given below as examples: On 27th September 1977, Birendra Kumar Sarker, MA student of University of Dhaka, was found heavily injured at ‘Jagannath Hall’ due to stab by another MA Student named Ranjit Kumar Majumdar (Dhaka Tribune, 2018). A case was filed immediately and soon it was converted into a murder case after Birendra’s death (Dhaka Tribune, 2018).
Despite the incident’s time that was in the year of 1977, according to the news as published, this murder case hasn’t been resolved even in 40 years!!! As been published in ‘bdnews24’ on 18th December 2015, trial for actor Sohel Chowdhury didn’t take place in 17 years (Bdnews24.com, 2018)!! If we look at a summary report s been published at ‘Dhaka Tribune’ at 27th April, 2016, prosecution of several highlighted murder cases are not found to have any trial progress visible (Dhaka Tribune, 2018). All of the above reports send a pretty clear message, murder trials in some cases are taking awfully long time and hence, the gap for what this is being created needs to be analyzed thoroughly. This study therefore is keen to analyze this gap, find the gap and causal factors, identify the correlations among them and finally derive alternates to improve. Objective: To analyze duration of murder cases at district judge courts considering time taken by: Police Judiciary (Judge) Lawyers (Both Defense and Public Prosecutor) To identify reasons for taking such time To find number of cases resulted conviction and for dismissals, why dismissed To detect correlation between case running time with conviction/ dismissal rate To derive recommendations against gathered findings Conceptual Framework: Democracy gives equal rights to all the citizens without any discrimination. Any exception taken whenever, however and wherever, the victimized citizen is allowed to go to a court of law immediately and seek justice. Prevailing law and order, the foremost fundamental, therefore is crucial to be served without failure.
Among all the three foundation of democracy, judiciary plays its role in serving the above. It is judiciary that ensures every exception towards law un-abidance is attended duly to right the wrong. Among the types of breakage of law, murder however is been considered as the prime one and therefore is judged with extreme caution. However, such caution often is overlooked and also, sometimes creates unusual time and resource consumption that delays the whole process of judgment of a murder case unusually long, resulting loss of effectiveness, economy and also efficiency of the whole process. To address this, understanding of stages criminal cases, possible causes for delay and finally a model for analyzing the situation would be needed primarily. This part of the paper will discuss stages criminal cases, possible causes delaying such stages and model for analyzing the situation.
Methodologies to find out the correlation are discussed later in the statistical framework part. Stages of a Criminal Case: According to the article named ‘Criminal Practice: Part 1 Issue I: The Stages of a Criminal Case: Pre-Proceeding Stage’ written by Barrister Munim (published in 12th June, 2012), there are four stages through which, a criminal case goes through: First step: Initiation of a criminal case Second step: Reporting to the Magistrate Third step: Investigation Fourth step: Final report/ Charge sheet Initiation of a criminal case: Any criminal case including murder is initiated is initiated through any of the below two ways: “Through filing a First Information Report (FIR) in case of cognizable (where arrest without warrant is permitted) offence.” (Barrister Munim, 2018). “Complaint to Magistrate in case of cognizable and non-cognizable (where arrest without warrant is not permitted) offence.” (Barrister Munim, 2018). Reporting to the Magistrate: “In case of FIR: The original copy of the FIR has to be sent to the Magistrate through a police officer within 24 hours (section 157 of CRPC and regulation 246 of PRB 1943 (Volume-1).
Upon receiving the FIR the case will be registered as a GR case.” (Barrister Munim, 2018).”In case of CR case: After a case is registered as CR case then no further reporting to the magistrate as the case has been taken into cognizance.” (Barrister Munim, 2018).”In case of CRP case: After a case is registered as CRP case, then a report has to be given to the magistrate upon inquiry or investigation (see the third stage below). The Magistrate then can take the offence in cognizance if he sees reason for proceeding and the CRP case then turns to CR case.” (Barrister Munim, 2018).Investigation: “Only in case of FIR or CRP case there is investigation by the Police. However, this has to be understood by way of cognizable and non-cognizable offence.” (Barrister Munim, 2018).”In case of cognizable offence: The police can investigate without the order of a Magistrate (section 156 CRPC).” (Barrister Munim, 2018).”In case of non-cognizable offence: Order of a Magistrate is required (section 155 CRPC).” (Barrister Munim, 2018).Also below issues are to be considered in this regard: “Investigation under CRPC: It has to be conducted by an IO (investigation officer) or anyone other than a Magistrate who has been authorized by a Magistrate for this purpose (section 173 CRPC).” (Barrister Munim, 2018). “Investigation under Special Powers Act (SPA) 1974: Only an officer not below the rank of sub-inspector (SI) can investigate (section 27 of SPA). He will report to the special tribunal which is the only body competent for this purpose.” (Barrister Munim, 2018).
“Maintaining case diary during investigation is mandatory for the investigating officer.” (Barrister Munim, 2018). “Any person who is arrested during investigation has to be produced before a Magistrate if investigation cannot be completed within 24 hours of arrest. This is known as ‘forwarding’. In this case police may seek remand for the arrested person for more interrogation.” (Barrister Munim, 2018). Final report/ Charge sheet: “Final Report: Upon investigation if no case of the offence is found then the police gives final report. It essentially releases an accused from custody or discharge him on bail as no case of the offence allegedly committed has been found against him (section 173 CPRC, Regulations 275-277 of PRB).” (Barrister Munim, 2018).
“The magistrate can accept or reject the report.” (Barrister Munim, 2018). “If he rejects the report he may order further investigation by the police (no new PS number is given). He can also order inquiry and examine the complainant and take the offence in cognizance.” (Barrister Munim, 2018). “If he accepts the report then the informant being aggrieved can file a naraji petition.
Here the Magistrate upon examining the petitioner/complainant can issue process upon the accused (i.e. proceeding of a case will start then) or direct inquiry by any other Magistrate Syed Azharul Kabir v Syed Ehsan Kabir, 4 MLR (AD) 343.” (Barrister Munim, 2018). “Charge Sheet: Upon investigation if any case of the offence is found then the police gives charge sheet by mentioning the name of those who have been formally charged for the offence. It essentially recommends for prosecuting the offender (Regulations 272-274 of PRB).” (Barrister Munim, 2018). “The final report or charge sheet has to be forwarded to the Magistrate empowered to take cognizance of the offence (section 173 of CRPC).” (Barrister Munim, 2018). Possible Causes for Delay in Criminal Cases: According to Albert C.
Barnes as mentioned in his journal named ‘Causes of Delay in Criminal Cases’, published in 1916, there are several causes that may delay the judgment process of a criminal case, essentially a murder case to pick one of all. In respect to the judiciary of Bangladesh, all such relevant causes are given below: Pre-Indictment delay often causes extra laps to start the official trial, causing extra time in the judgment of the particular criminal case. Daly in trial is often caused by pleading. Changes made in the type of plea in the middle and also procedural time consumption often cause extended time taken to complete trial. Change of judges is another criterion especially applicable for Bangladesh that takes numerous times quite often delaying the trial process. Placement of un-necessary witness and evidences, especially done several times by defense end is another cause for delay.
Unnecessary argument to is used in this regard. Delay to sentence after conviction, according to Albert C. Barnes, is another cause that consumes time after conviction. OECD/ DAC Definition of Evaluation: A Model to Evaluate the Situation: “The OECD/DAC definition of evaluation has been adopted all major development agencies internationally. The definition contains five evaluation criteria that should be used in assessing development interventions: efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability.” (Netpublikationer.dk, 2018).”To the extent that specific evaluations have specific purposes, that there is no one right way to conduct an evaluation and that these criteria are interdependent and not mutually exclusive, their relative meaningfulness for a specific evaluation should be assessed and trade-offs discussed in each case to ensure that key questions are addressed and to avoid unnecessary effort and expense.” (Netpublikationer.dk, 2018).Efficiency: “Efficiency is a measure of the relationship between outputs, i.e. the products or services of an intervention, and inputs, i.e.
the resources that it uses. An output is a measure of effort; it is the immediate observable result of intervention processes over which the managers of the intervention, i.e. the implementers, have some measure of control. An intervention can be thought of as efficient if it uses the least costly resources that are appropriate and available to achieve the desired outputs, i.e. deliverables, in terms of quantity and quality.” (Netpublikationer.dk, 2018).”The quality of the inputs and the outputs is an important consideration in assessing efficiency: the most economical resource is not necessarily the most appropriate and the trade-offs between the quantity of outputs and their quality is a key factor of overall performance.” (Netpublikationer.dk, 2018).Effectiveness: “Effectiveness is a measure of the extent to which the intervention’s intended outcomes, i.e.
its specific objectives – intermediate results – have been achieved. Explicitly, effectiveness is the relationship between the intervention’s outputs, i.e. its products or services – its immediate results – and its outcomes, meaning usually the intended benefits for a particular target group of beneficiaries.” (Netpublikationer.dk, 2018).”Evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention involves three steps: 1. Measuring for change in the observed outcome, e.g.
did the students learn something2. Attributing the change in the observed outcome to the intervention, did the students learn something because of the teaching3. Judging the value of the teaching to the learning, e.g. by using comparisons such as targets, benchmarks, similar interventions, the assessments of teachers, students, others, etc.” (Netpublikationer.dk, 2018).Impact: Impact is a measure of all significant effects of the development intervention, positive or negative, expected or unforeseen, on its beneficiaries and other affected parties. Whereas effectiveness focuses on the intended outcomes of an intervention, impact is a measure of the broader consequences of the intervention such as economic, social, political, technical or environmental effects; locally, regionally, or at the national level; on the target group and other directly or indirectly affected parties.” (Netpublikationer.dk, 2018).”A broad assessment of impact is essential in a comprehensive evaluation, however there are two central challenges to assessing impact: boundary judgment, i.e.
deciding what effects to select for consideration, and attribution, i.e. what effect is due to what.” (Netpublikationer.dk, 2018). Sustainability: “Sustainability is a measure of whether the benefits of a development intervention are likely to continue after external support has been completed. While the other criteria concern specific development interventions, the assessment of sustainability addresses the effects of the development process itself over the long term.” (Netpublikationer.dk, 2018).”Sustainability is becoming an increasingly central theme in evaluation work since many development agencies are putting greater emphasis on long term perspectives and on lasting improvements.” (Netpublikationer.dk, 2018).g. Significance: The system of democracy stands on three pillars: the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. All three contribute to maintain the democratic structure; but the one having the maximum and most direct impact on human life is that of the judiciary.
“The real ‘meaning of law’ is what the judges decide during the course of giving their judgments in various cases. From the citizen’s point of view, Judiciary is the most important organ of the government because it acts as their protector against the possible excesses of legislative and executive organs. Role of Judiciary as the guardian-protector of the constitution and the fundamental rights of the people makes it more respectable than other two organs.” (Your Article Library, 2018). In addition to judiciary’s role of guardian-protection of law and order, trial and verdict provision against committed crimes that challenges the law and order is a prime role expected to judiciary to play.
And when it come types of crime to be considered, ‘Murder’ itself possesses the pivotal place among all the criminal and civil natured ones. Understanding the greatness of judiciary’s role in the society clarifies the significance of its procedural accuracy. Disruption in judgment process especially including prolonged duration therefore affects the effectiveness as well as efficiency too of the judiciary. Considering the impact of such which not only creates chaos within order of the civil society but also violates one’s constitutional right for justice, failure in proper judiciary action will automatically fail justice prevalence resulting into failure of the state itself. From all of the above logics, theories and considerations; it is obvious that findings of this study, through which current judgement situation regarding murder cases at district judge court level will be analyzed deeply on stakeholder basis to identify present scenario, causes for such, their correlations by suggestions to improve such; will be utterly important and significant for state itself including Police as well judiciary to improvise scope wise.
These findings will clearly show the gaps at policy as well as execution level of Bangladesh regarding the judgment process of murder cases in Bangladesh addressing which, significant improvisation of the situation could be expected Methodology: Approach & Strategy: Considering the uniqueness of such study in Bangladesh, data has to be retrieved in both qualitative as well as quantitative manner. Qualitative data would be collected to attend pre-stated study objectives 1, 2 (partially) and 3 (partially). Also, quantitative data would be collected to attend pre-stated study objectives 2 (partially), 3 (partially) and 4. At the end, some attainable suggestion will be there based on the findings. Summary of approach would be therefore as below: Both qualitative and quantitative applied in different stages. Qualitative data will be collected through semi structured in depth interview conduction.
Ten case studies will be conducted here too. Quantitative data will be collected through questionnaire survey. Sampling Technique & Size: Addressing the limitation of time and resources in respect to the urgency for the research completion at earliest with focus towards limiting error margin as much as possible to ensure generalization virtue, in accordance with number of districts falling under each of 8 divisions of Bangladesh, 16 districts in total will be taken for study. Number of districts ’16’ has been determined using quota sampling technique where, number of districts per division has been determined considering district quantity weight (how many districts fall under the respective division). Finally, concentrated districts to work on have been taken using convenience sampling.
Name of selected districts division-wise chosen using the above methods are given below: Sample Size: For Qualitative: 10 in-depth case studies studies and required interviews. However, concerned cases will cover: First degree murder Types of convictions Death sentence Life sentence Other penalty Dismissal Underage alleged/ convict Female convict etc. For Quantitative: Survey within a sample of 100 among the targeted population This will cover all segments of the targeted population Target Population: Court official (for both primary as well as secondary data collection) Lawyers (both defense and public prosecutor where applicable) Investigation officer/ relevant police personnel Only murder cases whose verdict has been announced at district judge court within the year 2013-2017 will be considered. Sought Data Type: Both primary & secondary.Primary Data Collection: Close ended questionnaire will be used to collect data Data will be collected division-wise all around the country Interview will be conducted to collect data from selected case Secondary Data Collection: In-depth case studies of selected cases Records of selected courts Police records respective district-wise Local & Regional Studies/ news Data Analysis Method: Statistical Framework: Qualitative data would be used to analyze stakeholder-wise present scenario of extra time consumption of murder cases, to identify factors that influences stakeholders for greater time consumption and factors influencing dismissal of murder cases. However, number of occurrences as well as the correlations between the influence factors and time consumption rate would be determined by the below equation: Case Running Time = f(Influence Factor 1, Influence Factor 2, …., Influence Factor ‘n’) Descriptive Statistic: Mean, Standard Deviation Inferential Statistics: Regression to find correlation SPSS 23 will be used for data interpretation. Data Validation: The supplementary In-Depth Interview findings will be used to validate & explain the findings of the quantitative survey.
Also in addition, all such cases that of a particular division falls within the above mentioned time frame will be studied thoroughly. Research Team: The Bio-data of Lead Researcher, Research Associate and Research Assistant is in attached. j. Action Plan/ Timeframe: k. Financial Proposal: Submitted in Envelop 2 l.
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