English Law Commission Launches Project to Codify Sentencing Procedure

The Law Commission of England has launched a project to develop a single sentencing statute to bring clarity and coherence to current sentencing practices:

"There seems to be near unanimity from legal practitioners, judges and academic lawyers that the law in this area is in urgent need of reform. The courts have repeatedly complained about the complexity of modern sentencing procedure. There is strong evidence that the high number of unlawful sentences being handed down is a direct result of the inability of judges to find their way through the relevant provisions. This undermines public confidence in sentencing and costs a great deal of public money to rectify on appeal."

"Our aim in this project is to introduce a single sentencing statute that will act as the first and only port of call for sentencing tribunals. It will set out the relevant provisions in a clear and logical way, and ensure that all updates to sentencing procedure can be found in a single place. It is not the aim of this project to interfere with mandatory minimum sentences or with sentencing tariffs in general. Those will remain entirely untouched, but the process by which they come to be imposed will be streamlined and much improved."

The Commission intends to produce a series of consultative documents over the next 18 months and a draft Bill by the summer of 2017.