Lord chancellor grants herself veto on sentencing policy

The Sentencing Council describes itself as an ‘independent’ public body – but the lord chancellor today announced that the sentencing body will no longer be able to publish guidelines for judges without her approval.

Announcing a ‘democratic lock’ on the Sentencing Council, Shabana Mahmood insisted that individual sentencing decisions will always be the responsibility of the independent judiciary, but declared that policy ‘must be set by parliamentarians, who answer to the people’.

The lady chief justice will also have to approve any new guidelines under the legal requirement, which is being introduced after revised guidance on community and custodial sentences that the council planned to introduce in April sparked a major political backlash.

Mahmood and her opposite number, shadow lord chancellor Robert Jenrick, attacked a presumption that pre-sentence reports should be adopted as a matter of course for offenders in particular ethnic, cultural and faith groups. The Sentencing Council defended the guidance but paused it as a result of Mahmood’s decision to introduce legislation that would have rendered the guideline unlawful.

The Ministry of Justice today said the justice secretary and lady chief justice will be given individual and separate powers as part of the Sentencing Bill requiring them to approve any future guidelines before they can be issued. If either oppose the guidance, it cannot be issued.

Mahmood said: ‘Individual sentencing decisions will always be the responsibility of the independent judiciary - and this is something I will staunchly defend. However, policy must be set by parliamentarians, who answer to the people. Government and parliament have a legitimate role in setting the sentencing framework. It is right that we now have greater democratic and judicial oversight of the direction of the council’s work and the final guidelines they publish.’

In what will be seen as further political encroachment on the independence of the judiciary, the council’s annual business plan will have to be approved by the justice secretary.