![]() Justice is best served if trials take place without undue delay. If there is ‘reasonable doubt’, an accused person must be given the benefit of the doubt and found not guilty of the charge. Therefore, states should prove that it is necessary to bring a prosecution and then must prove guilt to a high standard. In general, if someone exercises their right to silence, it should not be used as evidence of guilt or as a reason to place them in pre-trial detention, and nor should they be penalised for it.īeing convicted of a crime can have serious, sometimes devastating, consequences for the convicted person, their family and wider community. ![]() People should not be coerced into confessing to a crime or to incriminate themselves through abusive interrogation tactics or by the threat of enhanced punishment for the assertion of fundamental rights. Equally, it is the responsibility of the state to prove that someone should be detained. It is the responsibility of the state to prove that someone is guilty, not for someone who is accused of a crime to prove their innocence. The presumption of innocence is also undermined by mass surveillance, the use of artificial intelligence to profile people, coercive policing practices and pre-trial detention. Accused people are often treated as criminals before they have had their day in court, for example when law enforcement parade arrested people through public places so they can be photographed by the media – also known as perp walks or by requiring accused persons to wear measures of restraint that make someone appear dangerous. But in practice there are many ways that this right is undermined. A fundamental principle behind the right to a fair trial is that every person should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
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