Law Weblog

Constitutional Reform Bill stopped

The House of Lords defeated government hopes of pushing through the Constitutional Reform Bill. The Bill aimed to abolish the post of Lord Chancellor and to set up a supreme court and to establish a new independent commission to appoint judges. The government is now forced to consider using the Parliament Acts to force through the Bill, next year.

Sentencing Guidelines Council

The new independent Sentencing Guidelines Council was set up today under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 in response to the Halliday report, which emphasised the importance of sentencing guidelines, in the White Paper “Justice for All”.

The existing Sentencing Advisory Panel (set up by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 ) will continue, but will now tender its advice to the Council, and not the Court of Appeal.

The Council includes the Lord Chief Justice and members with experience of the police, probation and prison services and victims of crime.  Parliament will scrutinise the Council’s draft guidelines through the Home Affairs Select Committee.

All courts will be required to take the Guidelines issued by the Council into account and to give reasons for departing from them.

Sentencing guidelines already exist for the more serious offences (e.g. burglary, rape, serious drug offences, fraud, causing death by dangerous driving); they are issued when the Court of Appeal believes guidelines to be necessary but only when a case of that type comes to the Court of Appeal. For cases that are dealt with in Magistrates’ Courts, the Magistrates’ Association issues the Magistrates’ Courts Sentencing Guidelines, latest edition 2004, and most Magistrates’ Courts adopt these.

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 introduced a range of new sentencing options, including two ‘intermediate’ sanctions ‘Custody Minus’ and ‘Intermittent Custody’ which will provide options short of full time custody, and provides for a new generic community sentence affording greater flexibility to sentencers where a non-custodial sentence is appropriate.

Sentencing website here.