[manolin]

Originally Posted by kaushik_s

Look, the issue here is not the age limit but the gravity of the crime and no-one should be let off almost scott-free of such grievous crime just because of his age. What people are trying to say here is that if a person of age 17.5 (or say 15/16 or any such age) commits such a heinous crime then he shouldn't be let off because of the loop-hole in the law. He should be punished the similar way that a 18 year would've been punished. It's not about the age but about the seriousness of the crime committed. And that's what people are trying to convey here. Hope the point is a bit clear now.

Yes. In future, this could be something which could be looked into, by any law reforms that are proposed in respect of juvenile justice. Any such system will still have an upper age limit for even the leniency requirement to kick in, and that is the tricky bit. You say 15/16, the law makers so far said 18. I gave the africa example because there violent crimes are conducted by kids who are 12, and hence some might say that let the age be 12, and any kid over 12 who rapes be given the full punishment. So the hoopla and the righteous anger which is being made out about the accused being 17.5 years, and the baying for literally his blood is quite pointless - some age had to be fixed for the juvenile justice to work - 18 was the age that was chosen; choosing a lower age may seem alright now, and yet will not be the relevant age in future situations. That is why the Justice Verma committees has not bothered with recommending any changes to the juvenile laws in this respect.

Ps: I guess the people are frustrated and really want action. Unfortunately rule of law in any governed country and not just in India, has to follow particular processes, and there will systemic gaps between what will be ideal and what will be actual. That is because a law can be only generic, and not tailored to particular situations. The 17.5 years wala frustration comes from such situation - but rule of law demands that in such situations, the accussed be given the benefit of the laws. We are not unique, nor are our laws (at least in this respect) really out of place - this is the way laws work (and will work). Period.

[kaushik_s]

Originally Posted by manolin

Yes. In future, this could be something which could be looked into, by any law reforms that are proposed in respect of juvenile justice. Any such system will still have an upper age limit for even the leniency requirement to kick in, and that is the tricky bit. You say 15/16, the law makers so far said 18. I gave the africa example because there violent crimes are conducted by kids who are 12, and hence some might say that let the age be 12, and any kid over 12 who rapes be given the full punishment. So the hoopla and the righteous anger which is being made out about the accused being 17.5 years, and the baying for literally his blood is quite pointless - some age had to be fixed for the juvenile justice to work - 18 was the age that was chosen; choosing a lower age may seem alright now, and yet will not be the relevant age in future situations. That is why the Justice Verma committees has not bothered with recommending any changes to the juvenile laws in this respect.

Ps: I guess the people are frustrated and really want action. Unfortunately rule of law in any governed country and not just in India, has to follow particular processes, and there will systemic gaps between what will be ideal and what will be actual. That is because a law can be only generic, and not tailored to particular situations. The 17.5 years wala frustration comes from such situation - but rule of law demands that in such situations, the accussed be given the benefit of the laws. We are not unique, nor are our laws (at least in this respect) really out of place - this is the way laws work (and will work). Period.

Well, I'm not stating that because of these media hype/hoopla surrounding this particular case. In fact I've seen only a few footage of news reports on this case [was traveling all this time]. But what I'm trying to say (and in my opinion) that the course of action of the law should be according to the brutality of the crime not by age.
And particularly in this case it's one person raping another person again and again and then inserting a rod to remove out intestine is no where can be called an act of a juvenile. Juvenile means young ones with lack of maturity and here it is not lack of maturity but it is lack of humanity altogether. If a person like this will be let off just after 6 months (and already 3 months have passed anyway) then what more can I say about the law. By any stretch of imagination how can anyone say that this kind of person will get reformed in 3 months? What I firmly believe that the law should have acted on the basis of the cruelity/brutality of the crime and not on age.
And no, law is not generic, it does and should take the gravity of the crime. Would like to know if a person committing a murder in rage/spur of moment gets the same punishment as one being committed in cold blooded/planned and brutal manner? It's not the same afaik.

[Sugeeta]

The gravity and nature of crime calls for punishment of all involved men, juvenile or not.

Or be faced with the reality that this guy will be walking loose on the streets, bragging about his misdeeds and motivating a few more "juveniles" to follow the same path. Who knows who the next set of victims are.

Death sentence. Nothing less for this group.

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by carboy

Who do you think would be the best person to decide these list of crimes?

Should it be Barkha Dutt or Vir Singhvi or Arnab Goswami? Or may be we can put them all together in a room to work up the list.

Or may be we should put that stupid woman's rights group person who wanted to change the law so that in rape cases, proof should not be required for conviction and the woman's word should be good enough.

Should this list be static or should we add new crimes to it as and when the TV channels feel that a particular crime should be added.

Nope. The people whom we have elected and who represent the nation. The Government should decide. The lawmakers of the land. But then you did not point out any fallacies to this logic.

But then we are just throwing out ideas and wondering aloud what may work or may not work. No need to get worked up so bad.

True there will always be a gap between ideal law and realistic law. The gap however should be made to be short as possible.

By the way please pardon my ignorance but if he is tried as a juvenile then what are his punishments for said crime under current law?

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by Sugeeta

The gravity and nature of crime calls for punishment of all involved men, juvenile or not.

Or be faced with the reality that this guy will be walking loose on the streets, bragging about his misdeeds and motivating a few more "juveniles" to follow the same path. Who knows who the next set of victims are.

Death sentence. Nothing less for this group.

true!

found this picture on FB depicting our worst fears!


courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/ProudToBeAnIndian.in

[sa_kiran]

Another cartoon and a very blunt statement.

[manolin]

Originally Posted by kaushik_s

By any stretch of imagination how can anyone say that this kind of person will get reformed in 3 months? What I firmly believe that the law should have acted on the basis of the cruelity/brutality of the crime and not on age.
And no, law is not generic, it does and should take the gravity of the crime. Would like to know if a person committing a murder in rage/spur of moment gets the same punishment as one being committed in cold blooded/planned and brutal manner? It's not the same afaik.

In your example - they will fall under different offenses under IPC - so the sentences will be different. Assuming a situation where they would both be convicted for the same offense (say for culpable homicide not amounting to murder). Their sentencing would probably be different, because the judge has discretion - the cold blooded one would get harsher and the other one lighter, BUT the minimum sentence would apply to both. The Judge has a discretion to decide on a length of sentence, but only after a minimum sentence. So the law is generic _ and all laws are generic. There is flexibility given to judges, but it is always limited to a particular range - to take of individual variances of cases.

On the question of reformation. There is a lot of writings and thoughts on this. People have made it their life's work to figure out which would be the best system for a criminal system, or a juvenile system. Thats why I am loath to pass comments on such systems, when clearly I would be just giving in to my surface thoughts - like what I feel about a situation, and not what I have decided based on empirical results, the basic theory of what is the role of law, and stuff like that in society. One doesn't need to be a lawyer to do all, all social sciences (pol sci, sociology, psychology) all of them have a role in deciding which is the best recourse - I would leave it to the experts to decide whether they think reform is possible, is a reformed individual necessary to the world, if someone gets punished then do they shy away from committing a crime in future, if they continue to commit crimes should they be locked away for life, if they are going to be locked away for life then why waste our money on maintaining jails, lets execute.

We used to have earlier the Jury system - guilty or not guilty would be decided by the jury, and the judge would only give the quantum of sentence. Then this happened. The jury was influenced by media and the system was a failure, and that was removed after the Nanawati case. Thank god for that - otherwise in this case, the owner of the bus also would also have been pronounced guilty by a jury of some major crime.

[alpha1]

I find it stupid that a person is juvenile when he is 17 years, 11 months old ... BUT
in one months time he suddenly becomes a full fledged mature adult.

What a laughable idiotic concept.

Equally laughable is the fact that at the age of 15 you are supposed to be mature enough to choose the stream (Science, commerce, humanities etc) which will determine the future course of your entire life.
At the age of 16 you are supposed to be mature enough to get a driving license

But only at age of 18 do you become mature enough to realize the crimes that you commit!!! Only once you are past 18 years old - do you realize what is violence, what is wrong and right.
Ideally this age should be very low - at the onset of puberty. (And no this is not keeping in mind sexual crimes only)

[AltoLXI]

From Jug Suraiya's column in today's TOI:

Link:
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.../rough-justice


In an interview to a magazine supplement, Bollywood actor John Abraham, who is perhaps better known for his impressive musculature than his intellectual acuity, said that if the government did not take prompt action to prevent the increasing incidence of violent sexual attacks on women, the public would have no recourse but to start lynching rapists. That a showbiz celebrity and a popular role model for young men should make such a public statement, which could be interpreted as an incitement to mob violence and vigilantism, shows the intensity of the repugnance and shame caused by recurrent cases of rapes that have focussed international attention of India's entrenched and systemic brutal maltreatment of its women, of which sexual assault is only one symptom.

The savagery of the attack on the victim, who has been iconised as Nirbhaya, has provoked a visceral reaction across civil society, many spokespeople of which have demanded various forms of rough and ready justice for rapists, the rougher and readier the better. The Justice Verma panel has deemed that it was not advisable to lower the cut-off age for juvenile offenders from 18 to 16, or to make the death penalty mandatory for rape. This seems to have further fuelled popular anger at our polity's seemingly utter helplessness in de-stigmatising the Indian republic as one of the world's most conspicuous violators of women's rights.

After World War II, when the atrocities of the Nazi holocaust came to light, the German people were saddled with the moral burden of what was called 'collective responsibility': no adult German could escape complicity in the genocide of Jews and other minorities on the grounds that they were unaware of what was happening to their neighbours. A similar sense of collective responsibility, tantamount to a feeling of collective guilt, seems to be spreading among the more gender-sensitised sections of Indian male society. The sharper the sense of guilt and shame, the harsher the penance ordained for its expiation.

That they have inherited and continue to participate, willy-nilly, in a patriarchal system viciously skewed in disfavour of the female, evokes a feeling of guilt and shame among a growing number of Indian men. This could explain the strident calls for lynch mobs and the public hanging of rapists, for chemical or surgical castration.

It is as though, in order to exorcise the demon of rape, and with it exorcise a sense of guilt, we seek to make retributive justice assume a form as violent and demonic as the crime it is meant to punish. While understandable, such gut reactions to any violent crime — particularly the most repugnant of crimes called rape — can only contribute to a further brutalisation of society.

It is what provokes such reactions which is significant: the growing sense of collective responsibility, of collective complicity. It is not just the rapist who is guilty of rape: in a way, and to an extent, we all are who, however unwillingly or unwittingly, are stakeholders in a society which over millennia has systematically conspired in the often violent debasement of women, of which rape is only one manifestation.

It's not only the criminals who violate women who are in the dock. In a collective sense, so are all of us. And the rage we feel towards them is a reflection of the rage we cannot bear to feel towards ourselves.

[sa_kiran]

Originally Posted by alpha1

I find it stupid that a person is juvenile when he is 17 years, 11 months old ... BUT
in one months time he suddenly becomes a full fledged mature adult.

And what is the basis for certifying that this beast is 17 years and 6 months? His so-called school related certificate. It is the same piece of certificate that was not considered in case of Gen VK Singh!

[mayankk]

I don't get this. I would have thought the juvenile system would be useful in protecting and rehabilitating a younger person who commits a less morbid crime, say a chain snatching, or theft, or even if we go so far as culpable homicide. But this, this is sheer barbarity.
Can someone who has such a mind ever be rehabilitated,or does he deserve to be?

Who knows, soon the prevelant anti social element in our country may be wielding armies of close- to- 18s with the promise of untold millions post a 6month detention,no matter what level of atrocities they commit.

[msdivy]

Since India is party to UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, the definition of juvenile cannot be changed - its everyone below 18 years (or 17 years 364 days).

But what can happen is new law with harsher punishment for crimes committed by juveniles. So this new law will be in reaction to Delhi case. I am not sure a new law formulated in retrospect to Delhi rape case, can be applied in the same case itself.

[Chetan_Rao]

Mod Note : Please use the EDIT or MULTI-QUOTE buttons instead of typing one post after another on the SAME THREAD! To know how to multi-quote, click here.

Keeping aside the change-the-laws argument for a moment, what about applying existing laws properly?

Letting off a brutal individual based on a document of questionable veracity is not right by any means, especially when better methods exist to ascertain human age.

If him being a 'juvenile' is the basis of how he's treated by the judiciary, isn't it our basest responsibility to ascertain his age 'beyond reasonable doubt'? I would love to hear the JJB's justification for considering school documents sufficient proof, when it's no secret how easy and cheap it is to procure such a document in our country.

If you're going to follow the system (however flawed it is), at least have the decency to do it properly. Or is the dead girl's life not even worth that much effort?

No law-abiding citizen wants to live in a anarchist society ruled by lynch-mob justice, but options are fast running out.

Originally Posted by mayankk

......Who knows, soon the prevelant anti social element in our country may be wielding armies of close- to- 18s with the promise of untold millions post a 6month detention,no matter what level of atrocities they commit....

Hyperbole aside, that is a genuine concern, and goes way beyond the scope of this single case.

Teenagers (esp. the 15+ age group) are high-risk since they're smart enough to understand how things work but not mature enough to understand long-term repercussions, and given the amount of publicity our flawed justice system is getting out of this case, I wouldn't be surprised if they're enticed into committing crimes under the notion that their age is the deciding factor in delivering 'justice', not the nature or extent of their crime.

[kaushik_s]

Originally Posted by mayankk

I don't get this. I would have thought the juvenile system would be useful in protecting and rehabilitating a younger person who commits a less morbid crime, say a chain snatching, or theft, or even if we go so far as culpable homicide. But this, this is sheer barbarity.
Can someone who has such a mind ever be rehabilitated,or does he deserve to be?

Definitely not, that person who can commit such barbaric crime (and with a sane mind) and enjoy while doing so, can not be reformed even in years, forget about getting reformed in months. He deserved to be punished at per with others and so should be the case with any such future cases.
Yes, people committing crimes because of situation may get reformed but someone brutalizing another person for his sexual and barbaric enjoyment will never get reformed even if the so called experts says so.

@Manolin, I can understand your point about lots of work being done to get the juvenile justice system. It works for people who have committed crime because of some very bad situation or for the urge of living. Those are the people who don't commit crime for pleasure but for their need. But for a moment, think out of these theories and see what kind of brutal crime has been committed in this particular case and do you really think that current reformation process of 3 months of counseling to that guy would be enough to make him repent? It doesn't seem likely, on the contrary it'll probably give encouragement to others to commit similar crimes as they know that they will almost go scot-free even in the worst case scenario.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Letting off a brutal individual based on a document of questionable veracity is not right by any means, especially when better methods exist to ascertain human age.

What better methods exist?

Originally Posted by msdivy

I am not sure a new law formulated in retrospect to Delhi rape case, can be applied in the same case itself.

IANAL, but I think the Indian constitution rightly disallows "ex post facto law".

Originally Posted by alpha1

I find it stupid that a person is juvenile when he is 17 years, 11 months old ... BUT
in one months time he suddenly becomes a full fledged mature adult.

What cut off do you suggest?