REPORTS OF COMMITTEES

Date01 November 1980
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1980.tb01615.x
Published date01 November 1980
REPORTS
OF
COMMITTEES
CRIMINAL
LAW
REVISION COMMITTEE, 14th REPORT
:
OFFENCES
AGAINST
THE
PERSON
:
HOMICIDE
THERE
is something disquieting
in
the approach of the Criminal Law
Revision Committee to the reform of the law of homicide.’ Instead
of
a thoroughgoing examination of the significance of such phenomena
as the
stigma
attached to murder (as opposed to manslaughter),
the Committee is content to pepper its Report with potentially
meaningless phrases such as
Those killings which everyone would
instantly recognise as murder.2
While
at times displaying such con-
fidence in its own ability to state the general consensus, the Committee
is on other occasions disarmingly coy as, for example,
in
the section
on mercy killing:
we were reminded that we were dealing with a
fundamental ethical problem and that as lawyers we had no special
qualifications
or
experience for solving it.3
Inevitably this final
report is a more cohesive and authoritative document than the
Working Paper (published in
1976)
but nevertheless it still has the
occasional crisis of confidence when it seems curiously reluctant to
stand firm by its own convictions. Thus the rather odd abdication of
responsibility on terrorist bombers:
we do not
think
that it should
form part of the law of murder.
If,
on the other hand, Parliament
considers
that
such form of killing should constitute murder,
we
think
the
appropriate way to effect this result would be.
. .
.4
Deference
to the better qualified and experienced on the one hand, and to
Parliament and public opinion on the other, perhaps left the Com-
mittee feeling rather constricted.
Few would doubt that the law relating to homicide is in a mess.
It
is in a rather different mess now than
10
years ago when the
question was first referred to the Committee. It may well be that
it
is a messy subject for which precise boundaries are difficult to
draw. The most important line
is
that which divides the
unlawful
homicide from the
lawful
homicide yet the emphasis
in
the Report is
largely on the line between one
sort
of culpable homicide (murder)
and the other
lesser
forms (manslaughter, infanticide, etc.). The
Committee in
a
sense forces itself into this position by its espousal
of the mandatory penalty for murder.6
In
some ways this issue is
pivotal in any quest for reform. The Committee’s adherence to the
1
Fourteenth Report
of
the Criminal
Law
,yn Commit,t,ce on Effences
Against
the Person. Cmnd.
7844
(1980)
(hereafter the Committee
and
the Report”).
This article deals mainly with mental elements. The
acfus
reus
is
largely undisturbcd,
see
paras. 3241.
2
Op.
cit.
para. 23.
3
Para.
115.
4
Para. 30.
5
Paras.
42-63. On the need to examine this question
first
see
Thomas,
Form
and
Function in Criminal
Lao,
in
Reshaping
the
Criminal
Law
(Glazebrook
(ed.)),
p. 21,
esp.
25-29.
681

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT