The Notion of Limitation in Criminal Law

Abstract

The relationship between time and prosecution has been the subject of legal debate for centuries and scholars took interest in this area to develop the understanding of the doctrine of time limitation. The majority of experts agree that criminal proceedings are not restricted to taking place within a certain amount of time after a crime has been committed or discovered. This rule has been widely accepted by many legal systems around the globe including Pakistan. Lord Ellenborough asserted in the year 1803, that an indictment-based criminal prosecution is not subject to any limitation at common law. This statement was elaborated by Blackstone's editors by noting that, unless there was a specific statute restricting the time of prosecution, the crown was free to prefer an indictment at any point after the offense was committed and that there was no general statute of limitations governing criminal proceedings. Nullum Tempus occurrit regi (no lapse of time bars the king) is said to have been disbanded by laws passed in the initial decade of the sixteenth century in cases to which they applied, one of which, set a thirty-day limitation period for prosecution of treasons committed by spoken words. The purpose of this chapter is to overview the doctrine of time limitation and develop an understanding of how it evolved. The arguments of proponent and opponents of the statutes of limitation will also be discussed in this chapter. With the help of arguments favoring statutes of limitation, the research will try to answer, in what ways might the lack of a statute of limitations contravene standards regarding fair trial? Furthermore, fundamental goals of time limitations in criminal law—to prevent the prosecution of stale allegations will be discussed in detail. At the onset of the research, the notion of time limitation and its rudimentary purposes has been discussed for a better understanding of the subject for further discussion. Then the focus of the research was turned towards Pakistan's legal system, this chapter aims to explore the statute of limitations that control various legal actions there. The research has generally overviewed the Limitation Act. In a nutshell, this chapter served as a portal to the legal landscape to establish a better understanding of the complexity of the doctrine of time limitation particularly in criminal law