The Sentencing Council – the organisation that advises judges on how long convicted criminals should be locked up for – has hit back at criticism from the Justice Secretary. Shabana Mahmood challenged the Council’s apparent embrace of ‘two-tier justice’ last week, after it told judges to order a pre-sentence report (PSR) if an offender is from a minority background. Lord Justice William Davis, the Council’s chair, has now responded – and has doubled down on its new guidance to judges.
Davis said that Mahmood and her officials had been briefed in advance about the instructions on sentencing offenders from ethnic minorities. He also said that ministers could not “dictate” sentencing and vowed to take legal advice.
The trouble is that Davis’s letter to the Lord Chancellor is obsessed with procedure, rather patronising, and a direct rejection of the right of democratically elected politicians to decide how justice is done in this country. It’s also unnecessarily long.
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