Homicide Law within England and Wales: Is There a Need for a Reform - Dissertation Example

Michael Jefferson, in his book1, Criminal Law mentions a leaked out memo published in Guardian of 11th July 2000, about the suggestion of the Prime Minister that a senior judge should go through the case of Tony Martin, who had killed a teenage burglar in his isolated farm, and report if the life sentence should be mandatory under the peculiar circumstances. Lord Mustill had expressed himself on the side of the reform saying that England and Wales ‘need a new law of homicide, or new law of punishment for homicide, or preferably both.

’ As it is not possible for the judges to change the law, all the prominent people who were on the side of an immediate reform urged the government from time to time, to make proper changes in the law. Naturally, political parties knew that reform of that kind will never be popular amongst the people, who would naturally think that too much of lenience has been accorded to the murderers by placing excuses and fresh defences in their favour. Perhaps none of the parties was interested in taking a risk.

Still, the Home Office press release of 2004, says that a ‘clear, comprehensive and fair’ law should be evolved as it is unfair to punish the terrorists and the mercy killers through the same old law. “Criminal Homicide is not a single entity in law, and its subdivisions have been shaped by strong moral and instrumental imperatives. Murder, especially, has been set apart from any other form of homicide as an abhorrent act which violates the principle of the sanctity of life and it must be awarded its own distinctive penalty.

” In the language of jurisprudence, there is no crime that could go beyond this most heinous crime. Justice, the United Kingdom branch of the International Commission of Jurists, captured its extraordinary standing when it declared that murder ‘has a unique place in the law of England not only because it is the most heinous crime in the criminal calendar, but also because it is the most serious crime for which the sentence is fixed by law.”