Menon committee recommends:
- Crimes to be reclassified under four codes; tackling marginal offences via civil/administrative procedures
- Online registration of FIRs
- Statements to police on audio or video be made admissible evidence
- Code of Ethics for criminal lawyers; legal help for the poor and weaker sections; better witness protection
- Liberal use of bail and probation, to avoid short-term imprisonment.
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Few may remember the six persons mowed down by Sanjeev Nanda's BMW eight years back. But it's tough forgetting images of defence and prosecution lawyers subverting justice on TV. The delays, witnesses turning hostile and the lawyers shielding the influential accused ...the motifs recur every time a high-profile case comes to court.The verdicts in the Jessica Lall and Priyadarshini Mattoo cases held out the first glimmer of hope. Then a committee was set up in June...
