Sentencing, Stephen Lawrence and the Rule of Law

Mr Justice Treacy's sentencing remarks in the Stephen Lawrence case are now available to view. As students - have a read and see if you can identify aggravating and mitigating factors referred to by the judge.

 The BBC also have a good clip here from an interview prior to the sentences being passed in which a barrister explains how the judge will approach matters.



As the offences in question were prior to Schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 on sentencing for murder - the Act does not apply to Dobson and Norris. Accordingly they were sentenced as juveniles, under the law which applied at the time. Whilst some have expressed concerns that this means shorter sentences than they would receive under the modern law, it is in accordance with the rule of law that laws should not have retrospective effect. In other words, if a law is to be applied it should have been in force at the relevant time.

BCA v Singh

...is an important recent ruling of the Court of Appeal that has several interesting applications for AS law students.

Singh is a journalist who published an article in the Guardian newspaper that was critical of chiropractors, and in particular of claims that their treatment was effective for things such as prolonged crying in infants. He was subsequently sued for libel by the British Chiropractors' Association.

The judge at first instance found that Singh's assertion that chiropractors "happily promote bogus treatments" meant, to paraphrase "deliberately untruthful". Libel law requires a defendant to prove the truth of such a statement - this is a reversal of the usual burden of proof. Obviously, based on that finding, Singh would struggle to prove his allegation to be true.

However, Singh's view was that the judge was wrong on this, and he therefore appealed to the Court of Appeal, whose recent judgment supports Singh's view, which is that his article was comment rather than a statement of fact. Although this was only a preliminary ruling, the BCA have now discontinued their action against Singh.

There are several points for you to note here:

Firstly, the campaign for libel reform is a great example of influcences on law reform - in this case, pressure groups. All parties have now committed in their manifestos to consider the issue.

Secondly, the judges in the Court of Appeal relied in part on an American case, Underwager v Salter. This is an example of the persuasive effect of foreign judgments on English courts.

Thirdly, there are links here to the rule of law, and in particular to the idea that everyone is equal before the law. Some say libel law is used by the rich as a muzzle to silence their critics, effectively using the huge costs of defending a libel action to force critics to back down, or risk bankruptcy.

Are the Lords above the law?

...or does the Rule of Law apply to them as it does to everyone else?

Have a read of the Times article here - a fantastic expose of the protection afforded to our parliamentarians.

Read what the person in charge of the House of Lords, Baroness Royall, has to say about this here.