These figures have helped to expose big corruption scandals and developed a reputation for robustness against terrorists, but they have also produced some miscarriages of justice.
This week plans were unveiled to abolish France's controversial investigating magistrates, who have huge powers both to investigate suspects and to send them for trial, and whose solitary role has been blamed for some recent miscarriages of justice.
All this is profoundly true, and evidently anathema to Lord Hutton's precise legal mind (though he might have done well to consider that precise legal minds such as his own have inflicted some colossal miscarriages of justice in modern times, not least because of judges' willingness to swallow official evidence).
Some victims of miscarriages of justice face homelessness and we will continue to lobby to ensure that the homelessness regulations recognise the trauma and the exceptional circumstances that such wrongful incarceration creates for these people.
Some miscarriages may be a result of inadequate progesterone secretion.
Think about the famous miscarriage-of-justice cases.
Richard Foster, chairman of the commission, said: "This is not about some sudden upsurge in miscarriages of justice.
The CCRC led to a quadrupling of cases referred to the court of appeal; the more rigorous investigation of cases; and the righting of some terrible long-standing miscarriages of justice.
And we are still wondering whether some fearful miscarriage of romance occurred on account of the dictatorial tone of the fourth message.
So the night felt unpleasantly self-congratulatory, despite the fact that Amnesty International deserve our praise and support, pending some horrible miscarriage of justice or fraud that has yet to come to light (pardon the cynical self-check — it's been that kind of news cycle).
For 40 years, Michael Mansfield QC has fought for the underdog and the wrongly imprisoned, overturning some of Britain's worst miscarriages of justice and staking a claim as one of the country's leading human rights lawyers.
