Four Threats to the Presumption of Innocence

Abstract

This article sets out to re-examine the rationale for the presumption of innocence, and then assesses four contemporary threats to the presumption—through confinement, by defining offences so as to reduce the presumption's impact; erosion, by recognising more exceptions; evasion, by introducing more civil and hybrid procedures; and side-stepping, by increasing restrictions on liberty to little short of its full deprivation.