There are a number of principles of justice set in Australia’s legal system which are designed to protect the rights of all Australian citizens who come before the court and to ensure that all legal procedures advance in a fair and just way. These principles are important because if they are not followed, cases can having disastrous consequences as shown in the John Button case. Through an investigation of this case, it will be shown that a miscarriage of justice was carried out because certain principles of justice were compromised leading up to the conviction of John Button. While a number of the principles weren’t followed some where still upheld. The right to remain silence, right to a reasonable appeal and high quality evidence are the main principles involved in this case.

The right to silence means everyone has the right to remain silent and not answer questions (besides name and address) from the police or legal authorities. This reduces the possibility that you say something that incriminates yourself while answering questions under pressure. In the John Button case this principle was compromised as police used coercion and physical harassment during questioning to get John to sign a false confession. After John found Rosemary Anderson’s body and brought it to the doctor he was taken to the State Central Police Station and was interrogated for several hours. Detective Sergeant John Wiley, beat John to convince him to sign a false confession. During the interrogation John was informed that Rosemary had died in hospital from her injuries. After learning that one of his love ones had died he was struck with negative emotions. In a news report John stated, “at that point my world came to an end and I was devastated, I just had to get away and cry somewhere”. After this John simply gave up and signed the confession the police had written up for him, stating that he had hit Rosemary. The confession read, “Rosemary was walking on the left-hand edge of the road close to the edge of the bitumen. Before I realised what had happened, I had hit her with the left-hand side of the front of my car. When I hit her, I felt a loud crunch and I carried her a few yards on the front of my vehicle.” The police did not follow this  principle of justice while interrogating John. This could have easily been avoided if the police did not use physical harassment or coercion while they were questioning John. Compromising this principle meant that John Button had a huge disadvantage in his case.

Another principle of the justice system is high quality evidence, meaning that all evidence used in a case must be of a high quality to prove someone guilty of a crime. This principle was compromised in the John Button case as the evidence used to convict John was proved unreliable later on in the case. The main evidence used in the case was that the front of John’s car had damages that could be consistant with an accident, such as the murder of Rosemary. This evidence was disproved by Trevor Condron who was the police officer responsible for examining the car, told the appeals court that the damage to the car was not consistent with hitting a person. John had reported an accident to the police three week’s before the death. He reported that he had been in an accident with a Ford Prefect and that it had resulted in the dent at the front of his car. The dent in John’s care matched up exactly to the one he claimed to have hit. The accident report that held all this information about the car accident was presented to the police but was discounted as irrelevant. If this evidence was used in the case would prove that John’s car what not used to kill Rosemary. The principle of high quality evidence was compromised in the John Button causing John to waste a lot of his life fighting to prove his innocence.

The right to an appeal means anyone who disagrees with the outcome of their court case has the right to appeal their case to a higher court. This gives the accused another chance to prove themselves innocent to a different panel of judges. This principle of justice was supported in the John Button case as he was given the right to appeal multiple times both during his time in jail and after. He had 5 unsuccessful appeals until 2001 when he had a retrial in Western Australia’s Court of Criminal Appeal which was found in John’s favour. In 2002 his conviction was quashed and he was exonerated of his crimes. The final appeal was supported by a testimony from Eric Cooke, the hit and run serial killer whose accounts matched up with others from witnesses and police records. This principle held a huge part in the John Button case as John wouldn’t have been a free man if he was denied his right to an appeal.

The majority of the principles of justices used in the John Button case were compromised including but not limited to; right to silence and high quality evidence. While most of the case was unfair to John the principle of the right to an appeal was upheld allowing John to return to a somewhat normal life after his crimes were exonerated. It is clear that the justice system was upheld to a poor extent during the John Button trial and this was at fault of the police officers who conducted the interrogation and the police officers who decided useful evidence was irrelevant. Although John spent around 5 years in jail he finally achieved justice in 2002 when he won his sixth appeal. John was compensated $460,000 and lives with his loving wife and five of his grandchildren. John Button was a free man but he never truly felt like one. John once told an interview that, “It’s like being kidnapped by society for years and when you return … nobody welcomes [you back]. You’re a victim, but nobody sees you that way.”. It is vital that the principles of justice will be upheld in the future, to prevent more cases ending up like this.