Report on Mandatory Sentences - Law Reform Commission

1.119 Traditionally, the courts of Northern Ireland have been guided by the guideline sentencing
judgments of the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal and, to a lesser extent, by comparable guidelines from
England and Wales. In 2010, the Hillsborough Agreement, 235 which provided for the devolution of justice
matters to the Northern Ireland Executive and Northern Ireland Assembly, contained a proposal to
establish a sentencing guidelines council. This followed the establishment in 2009 by the Northern Ireland
Lord Chief Justice of a Sentencing Working Group, which reported in June 2010. 236 In its report, the
Working Group recommended the establishment of a Sentencing Group which would be chaired by a
Lord Justice of Appeal and would comprise representatives of the judiciary. The functions of the Working
Group would be to: (a) take views on priority areas in which sentencing guidelines were needed, (b) put
arrangements in place for guidance to be delivered in those areas, and (c) consider Court of Appeal and
first instance sentencing cases which might merit inclusion in the Northern Ireland Sentencing Guidelines
and Guidance Case Compendium on the Judicial Studies Board website. 237 Following this, the Lord Chief
Justice launched a public consultation on what should be included in a priority list of areas for which
sentencing guidelines were needed. 238 As a result of this consultation process, a First Programme of
Action on Sentencing was developed. This set out the following categories of offence:
Domestic violence;
Serious sexual offences;
Human trafficking;
Attacks on public workers, including police officers;
Attacks on vulnerable people, including the elderly;
Duty evasion and smuggling;
Environmental crime in the Crown Court;
Honour-based crime;
Tiger kidnapping;
Intellectual property crime;
Road traffic offences;
Hate crime;
Health and safety offences causing death;
Manslaughter; and
Child cruelty and neglect and serious assaults on children.
1.120 Parallel to this, the Northern Ireland Minister for Justice published a Consultation Document on a
Sentencing Guidelines Mechanism in 2010. 239 This set out three options for a sentencing guidelines
mechanism:
A Sentencing Guidelines Council with responsibility for producing guidelines;
A Sentencing Advisory Panel with responsibility for drafting guidelines for the approval of the
Court of Appeal; and
235
236
237
238
239
Agreement at Hillsborough Castle 5 February 2010 at 6.
Monitoring and Developing Sentencing Guidance in Northern Ireland - A <strong>Report</strong> to the Lord Chief Justice from
the Sentencing Working Group (Sentencing Working Group, 2010).
Ibid at 3.
Lord Chief Justice’s Priority Sentencing List - Summary of Responses, Analysis of Consultation and
Programme of Action (2011) at 1.
Consultation on a Sentencing Guidelines Mechanism (Northern Ireland Department of Justice, October 2010).
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