Sometimes called “accountability for past crimes/wrongs” in a transitional justice setting, criminal accountability is the process whereby human rights abusers are held responsible for their misdeeds through identifying the crime and the perpetrator, holding fair and free trials, and meting out punishment in accordance with the crime committed. Criminal accountability, usually considered prerequisite to the rule of law, is neither “horizontal accountability” (checks and balances of power between the three branches of government) nor “vertical accountability” (citizens holding elected officials to account through elections) in democracy. Noncriminal accountability is achieved through exposing the name and misdeeds of perpetrators to public condemnation in the absence of trials.