As already stated, judicial discretion encompasses the freedom that judges are assigned by the legal apparatus within a given jurisdiction. The allowances provided by the law to practice discretion mean that personal opinions are usually injected in the making of judgements in the legal system. As such, discretion leads to unpredictability and discrepancies in the issuing of sentences for similar criminal offences. Discretion is a double-edged sword that carries advantage and disadvantages. The advantage of judicial discretion is that it allows for the consideration of the unique circumstance of each case and apply the legal provisions according to these guidelines. However, judgments can be biased and too varied in cases that appear to share similar magnitude due to variations in judge perceptions. In this paper, I take the stand that the Irish judicial system allows for wide discretion that hurts the delivery of criminal justice in the …show more content…
The criminal justice system is structured in such a way that the legal apparatus provides freedom to the judges to practice discretion. The legal apparatus used is based on the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act [1993] and the various amendments that have been made to streamline the law. The Irish Constitution of 1937 has been an instrumental force in the creation of court systems regarding the sentencing procedures. The provisions of the Criminal Justice Acts enable judges to determine the sentence alongside the guidelines of the law. Factors like the level of cooperation with the court procedures, the impact of the offences on the victims, the criminal history of the concerned individuals, and facts of the alleged offence. These provisions are necessary for the sentencing procedures to ensure that judgments ae not biased and determined solely by the legal