Criminal Responsibility and Juvenile Justice Act
Recently, the father of the victim in the Ryan school murder demanded that the juvenile accused in the case should be tried as an adult. In the aftermath of Nirbhaya case, the parliament had amended the Juvenile Justice Act to allow juveniles above 16 years to be tried as adults. From this context, some basic questions emerge regarding criminal responsibility, criminal liability, criminal majority and issues around them in legal procedures. This topic pertains to mechanisms and laws for protection of vulnerable sections in your GS-II syllabus.
What is Criminal Responsibility?
The term criminal responsibility refers to a person’s ability to understand his or her conduct at the time a crime is committed. What a person is thinking when he commits a crime, or what result is anticipated or expected when a crime is committed constitutes the criminal responsibility. Criminal responsibility relates to the mental state element as well along with the criminal act or actus Reus, i.e. mens rea of a crime which includes knowledge and intention. Intention means that the actor’s conscious objective is to bring about a particular result whereas knowledge means that the actor is aware that his or her conduct is criminal, or is aware that his or her conduct will bring about a particular result. The prosecution is required to prove that the person committing the crime was mentally sound to realise the act was wrong and only proving the criminal act is not enough.
What is Criminal Majority?
Criminal majority is the threshold of adulthood as recognized or declared in law. It is the minimum age at which a person can be held or tried as an adult with more severe punishments. If a person between the age of criminal responsibility and criminal majority commits a crime he or she is protected by the country’s juvenile justice system and typically isn’t required to serve sentences alongside adults.
We note here that there is no global standard of minimum age where a child can be deemed to be mature enough to recognise consequences of a crime, but most countries have a minimum age of criminal responsibility (CR) below which it is presumed a child is incapable of committing a crime and cannot be punished. The age of criminal responsibility in India is 7 years. Hence, a child below the age of 7 years cannot be considered a criminal for the act he has done. Further, the children just above the Criminal responsibility age can’t be tried as adults. If a person between the age of criminal responsibility and criminal majority commits a crime he/she is protected by the country’s juvenile justice system and typically isn’t required to serve sentences alongside adults. In context with Indian laws, we need to note that nothing is an offence done by children between 7 and 12 years of age who have not attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of their conduct on that occasion and did not know that what they were doing was wrong.
Issues related to India’s Juvenile Justice Law
After the Nirbhaya rape case, when one of the accused who was a juvenile during the crime was acquitted, there were lots of hues and cries and PILs were filed against his acquittal on the basis of his age. Hence the Juvenile Justice Act 2005, in 2015 was replaced by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which provided with reforms over the criminal responsibility and age of criminal majority. The new act allowed children aged 16 to 18 years to be tried as adults for heinous offences. Also, a person of 16-18 years age, who commits a serious offence, may be tried as an adult if he is apprehended after the age of 21 years. A heinous offence attracts a minimum seven years of imprisonment. A serious offence attracts three to seven years of imprisonment and a petty offence is treated with a three year imprisonment. No child can be awarded the death penalty or life imprisonment. The act also provided for a Juvenile Justice Board which will comprise of psychologists and sociologists, who will decide whether the person between 16 to 18 years can be tried as an adult or not, taking into consideration of the mental element of the crime committed.
