The Balanced

The draft amendment Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) seeks, among others, to stiffen private criminal prosecution. The private prosecutor will be left with little or no rights if the draft bill becomes law. The draft CPC amendment bill will undermine people’s right to initiate and continue with private criminal prosecution if it is allowed to pass to become law. What sense does it make for a Director of Public Prosecutions to be given the power to discontinue a private criminal prosecution?  The differences between the current CPC and the draft amendment of the CPC The current Criminal Procedure Code thus provides that a person, other than a public prosecutor or a police officer, who has reasonable and probable cause to believe that an offence has been committed by a person, may make a complaint thereof to a Magistrate who has jurisdiction to try or inquire into the alleged offence, or within the local limits of whose jurisdiction the accused person is alleged to reside or be. The complai