The Effect of the Advice of the Sentencing Advisory Panel upon the Form of Judgments
| Author | Alec Samuels |
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.68.1.45.25835 |
| Published date | 01 January 2004 |
| Date | 01 January 2004 |
COMMENT
The Effect of the Advice of the Sentencing
Advisory Panel upon the Form of
Judgments
Alec Samuels
The institution of the Sentencing Advisory Panel (SAP) has certainly
produced some advantages. The panel of distinguished persons with
considerable and varied experience has produced a dozen or so reports,
backed by research, which have proved very useful to the Court of
Appeal in coming to guidelines decisions. However, it is submitted that
the results have not always been so beneficial to the form of the
judgments. With the volume of cases passing through the criminal
courts, the explosion of reported cases, the rapid changes in societal
values, the changing views of influential people, and the repeated
legislative changes, busy practitioners and judges cannot find the time to
read lengthy reports, many, many cases, and lengthy discursive judg-
ments. We need to be able to find the current law quickly, in one place,
in manageable compass, clearly set out, intelligible and straightforward
to apply. Measured study must be left to the scholars, such as Dr David
Thomas, commentators, and leading counsel with a quality practice
giving him the time to research his cases in depth.
The final product or the process?
The busy practitioner and indeed the busy judge is interested essentially
and indeed almost exclusively in the final product, not the process by
which that final product emerged. Whatever the SAP may have said,
and indeed whatever counsel may have said, what precisely are the
principles, the rules, the guidelines, the relevant factors, for sentencing
in this type of case? The SAP talked it through, counsel argued the case,
the judges considered and decided. What did they decide? That is what
we want to know. Reasons obviously should be given by the judges, but
a reason is not the history, but the explanation for the principle which
helps the understanding and application of that principle.
In a number of the cases the Court of Appeal has largely adopted the
conclusions of the SAP, but then added some extra points or riders or
variations or wrinkles. Those applying the guidelines judgment in the
future do not want to have to sort out where and to what extent
the Court of Appeal departed from the SAP advice.1
1In R v Mashaollahi [2001] 1 Cr App R (S) 330 (a case concerning drugs offences) the
Court of Appeal added points about level of purity and street value.
45
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