Chapter 6. Miscarriages Of Justice Originating From Unsafe Identification Evidence In Criminal Cases

Abstract

The jurisprudence of international criminal tribunals, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), may be regarded as sophisticated in that it incorporates the notion of protecting against miscarriages of justice. International tribunals have ruled on the methods and means that lead to identification evidence in practice. The first method is in-court or dock identifications, which in principle have been allowed by the ICTY, albeit with an evidentiary restriction. The second method pertains to identification evidence by means of a photospread. Again, the Tadic decision of the ICTY is instructive. In that case, the judges accepted the photospread method as being an unbiased identification procedure. Most international criminal trials rely upon identification evidence. While in murder cases and also war crimes cases, the admission of eyewitness identification evidence is instrumental in successfully prosecuting these crimes.Keywords: criminal cases; ICTR; ICTY; identification evidence; miscarriages of justice