Criminal Law
The Law Commission's consultancy paper on civil penalties for crimes
27th August - Don't worry burglars are not about to be sanctioned with a fine instead of the usual serving of porridge! - With more than 3,000 criminal offences having been put into legislation since 1997, according to the commission, and many people believing government has become too reflexively punitive, these proposals will rightly attract support - The Law Commission discusses its plans...
A significant proportion of the new criminal offences created in England and Wales each year have a regulatory or public interest objective. In this regard this project, which has a particular focus on the treatment of businesses under the criminal law, looks at three main areas:
First, this project looks at the use of the criminal law as a way of promoting regulatory objectives and public interest goals. The focus will be on offence creation – when is a criminal offence needed, and when it is, what form should it take? The project aims to create a set of guidelines for law-makers across Whitehall on when and how they should use the criminal law.
Second, the project considers whether a number of doctrines of liability applicable to companies and unincorporated associations are in fact unfair to such bodies, in particular whether they are unfair to small businesses. In this regard we look specifically at the doctrine of delegation and the doctrine of ‘consent and connivance’.
Third, we examine the interpretation by the courts of offences in the regulatory or public interest context. In doing so we will be examining the application of the ‘identification’ doctrine and the possibility of giving courts the power to apply a due diligence defence when interpreting the scope of the statutory offence.
http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/regulation_liability.htm
The Guardian has produced an interesting article suggesting civil penalties are not a soft option for instance a regulatory framework will need further quangos and further state imposition in our lives:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/aug/26/law-commission-civil-sanctions
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