Victim of crime should never become victim of process: Madras High Court Chief Justice

There is an urgent need to speed up the processes in the criminal justice system to prevent the process from victimising the victim further, Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari, Chief Justice, Madras High Court, said in Chennai on Friday.

“Our urgent goal now is to speed up our system. A victim of crime should never become a victim of process,” Justice Dharmadhikari said, delivering the inaugural address at a national conference on ‘Victim Justice: Issues and Challenges’ at the University of Madras. Years of progressive lawmaking has managed to pull the victim out of the “dark margins of the courtroom and placed them exactly where they belong -- right at the centre of the judicial system”, he maintained.

Legal and administrative procedures must never inflict fresh trauma on those who are really broken, they must offer immediate support, public care, and unconditional dignity, Justice Dharmadhikari said.

“Procedure may be the skeleton of justice, but compassion is its beating heart. And when compassion leads the way, the courtroom stops being a place of fear and becomes a sanctuary of healing,” he told students, faculty, and researchers who were participating in the conference.

P. Jyothimani, former Madras High Court judge and president of International Foundation for Victim Justice, said investigation and prosecution have long been the talking points in the criminal justice system, but victim justice was an important part of it as well. The idea of victimology should find echo across the world and with hope of carrying forward that work, the foundation was born, he added.

R. Thilagaraj, former head, Department of Criminology, University of Madras, said victim justice evolved from an academic field of study to a powerful social and legal advocacy movement that shifted the criminal justice systems from a strictly offender-centric focus to recognising the rights, needs, and voices of crime victims.

Rita John, registrar, University of Madras, and S. Latha, assistant professor, Department of Criminology and director, Centre for Cyber Forensics and Information Security, University of Madras, participated.