Sentencing in UK Law

But none of them touches the essential issue, which is the need to maintain among members of the public a well-founded confidence that any solicitor whom they instruct will be a person of unquestionable integrity, probity and trustworthiness. The reputation of the profession is more important than the fortunes of any individual member. Membership of a profession brings many benefits, but that is a part of the price.

It is plain that the Advisory Council has a most important function to perform. The administration of justice involves the determination of what punishment a transgressor deserves, the fixing of the appropriate sentence for the crime. The grant of mercy involves the determination that a transgressor need not suffer the punishment he deserves, that the appropriate sentence may for some reason be remitted. The former is a judicial, the latter an executive, responsibility.

The correct analysis is that the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal comprises an expert and informed tribunal, which is particularly well placed in any case to assess what measures are required to deal with defaulting solicitors and to protect the public interest. Absent any error of law, the High Court must pay considerable respect to the sentencing decisions of the tribunal.

(a) Sentence will be imposed at the date of the sentencing hearing, on the basis of the legislative provisions then current, and by measured reference to any definitive sentencing guidelines relevant to the situation revealed by the established facts.

Returning to the exercise of the court's discretion, or more accurately, its judgment, whether a sentence of imprisonment for public protection should be passed when the necessary criteria are established, the court is entitled to and should have in mind all the alternative and cumulative methods of providing the necessary public protection against the risk posed by the individual offender.

These levels are not postponed until nor suddenly accelerated by an eighteenth or twenty-first birthday. Therefore although the normal starting point is governed by the defendant's age, when assessing his culpability, the sentencing judge should reflect on and make allowances, as appropriate upwards or downwards, for the level of the offender's maturity.

The Secretary of State is compelled, or at least entitled, to have regard to broader considerations of a public character than those which apply to an ordinary sentencing function. It is he, and not the judges, who is entrusted with the task of deciding upon the prisoner's release, and it is he who has decided, within the general powers conferred upon him by the statute, to divide his task into two stages.