LORD
TY MON
CHANCELLOR
HKK 380/6
16 JAN MO
DEX OFFICER
INDEX
HOUSE OF LORDS,
SWIA OPW
19th December, 1977
PA
No
173-1711
Dear Tany.
Sentencing Policy
Thank you for your letter of the 15th December.
It is always a delicate matter to lecture judges about sentencing policy and I dare say you, and the Attorney-General of Hong Kong, would have to tread very carefully indeed. I will, however, do my best to answer your questions in the light of experience here.
In the first place, there is no doubt whatever but that the Lord Chief Justice of England has an enormous influence on the sentencing policy of both the Queen's Bench Judges and the Circuit Judges. He derives this influence from the fact that he presides for most of his time in the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal, the bulk of whose work is hearing appeals or applications for leave to appeal against sentence. This gives the Lord Chief Justice an opportunity of ruling authoritatively on the propriety of different kinds of sentence for different kinds of offences.
Secondly, in recent years the Lord Chief Justice has made it his business to organise sentencing conferences at which problems affecting the Crown Court in connection with finding the appropriate sentence for all sorts of offences are discussed. Normally, these are run by an experienced Queen's Bench Judge and are attended by High Court Judges, Circuit Judges, Recorders and others who sit judicially. The aim is to produce some kind of consistency and obviously
the Lord Chief Justice and his puisnes can, between them, set the standards to be aimed at, (In practice, I understand, the junior judges are often far more
severe than the senior ones!).
Thirdly, from time to time the Lord Chief Justice organises smaller conferences confined to the Queen's Bench Division Judges with a view to setting down policy rather than instructing the junior Judges. He is, for example, just about to organise a conference at which policy in connection with the vex ed subject of sentencing for sexual offences is to be considered.
I see no reason why you should not pass this on to Hobley, since it is merely information about what goes on here. Advice as to what to do is rather more difficult: what one would like to see would be an occasion engineered when the Chief Justice of Hong Kong could have a talk to our own Lord Chief Justice and some of his senior Queen's Bench Judges to discuss the whole problem. This might be much more effective than a lecture from the Attorney-General. So my advice would be to try to get the Chief Justice over here and encourage him to discuss these matters with Lord Widgery. I am sure that, if this were organised, I could very readily get Lord Widgery to play his part.
Youn
sincerely
Вай
Ligeid Bar
J.W. Bourne
A.R. Rushford Esq., C.M.G.
7
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