Our courts treat criminal conviction with extreme caution – so shouldn’t we be a little more cautious in creating criminal laws?

Modern judicial systems are largely grounded on the principle of the ‘presumption of innocence’, which is intended to protect individuals from receiving inappropriate punishments. While we are extremely careful to prevent wrongful convictions in courts, however, the laws which are enforced by courts are typically passed by simple majorities in a national legislature. Arguing that it is perhaps no less of an injustice to be convicted on the basis of a flawed law, than it is to be wrongly convicted on the basis of an appropriate one, Patrick Tomlin writes that it may be time to consider a new approach, such as using supermajorities for criminalisation decisions.