Coroners and Justice Bill

The Coroners and Justice Bill, published today, is a huge portmanteau measure, running to 162 clauses and 232 printed pages.

I am about to start wading through it. In the meantime, I have put together this summary from notes published by the Government.

Part 1 deals with coroners. Its main elements are:

* Creation of a new national coroner service, led by a new Chief Coroner, moving towards whole-time coroners working within flexible jurisdictions and to national minimum standards, with powers to commission non-invasive post-mortems where appropriate, and complying with a charter of services for bereaved families; and

* Creation of a new system of secondary certification of deaths that are not referred to the coroner, covering both burials and cremations.

Part 2, which covers homicide, deals with:

* Abolishing the existing partial defence of provocation and replacing it with two new partial defences of killing in response to a fear of serious violence, and killing in response to words or conduct which caused the defendant to have a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged;

* Modernising the partial defence of diminished responsibility based on the concept of a "recognised medical condition";

* Clarifying the offence of infanticide;

* Simplifying and modernising the offence of assisting suicide.

Part 2 also amends the law on prohibited images of children. In addition, it deals with conspiracy, and hatred on grounds of sexual orientation.

Part 3 re-enacts the provisions of the emergency Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Act 2008 so that the courts may continue to grant anonymity to vulnerable or intimidated witnesses where this is consistent with a defendant's right to a fair trial.

This part of the Bill also allows courts to grant Investigative Witness Anonymity Orders in certain gun and knife crime cases. It also extends the use of special measures in criminal proceedings (such as the use of live video links and screens around the witness box) so that vulnerable and intimidated witnesses can give their best evidence.

Part 4 deals with sentencing. It

* Establishes a new Sentencing Council for England and Wales, in place of the Sentencing Guidelines Council, with a strengthened remit to promote consistency in sentencing practice;

* Enables the courts to pass an indeterminate sentence for public protection for certain terrorist offences; and

* Prevents criminals from profiting from books and other publications about their crimes through the introduction of a civil recovery scheme.

The remainder of the Bill includes:

* Amendments to the Data Protection Act to strengthen the inspection powers of the Information Commissioner and to remove barriers to the sharing of information where this is a strong public interest in doing so; and

* Amendments to sentencing and other legislation to support implementation of the Framework Decision on taking about of convictions in the Member States of the European Union in the course of new criminal proceedings.

There is more, much more.

Posted at January 14, 2009 04:30 PM