Law Evaluations (Non-Fatal Offences)

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  • Created by: Muhammad
  • Created on: 14-03-13 14:09

Language

Language:

The language that is used in the statute is outdate, for example it uses worlds such as "Maliciously" and "Grevious", this may be because the statue is over 150 years old. This is a problem becuause it is hard for non-lawyers to undertsand or even for layers to understand, for instance "maliciously" would ordinary be interpretated as being wicked but the courts have interpretated it as "Intenion/reckless", this is a problem because the lawyers would find it hard to construct a case for their clients. 

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Sentencing

Sentencing:

The sentencing in non-fatal offences can be seen as being unfair, an example of this is the sentence for ABH and GBH (S.20) having the same maximum sentence of 5 years. This is unfair becuase people who commited ABH have the same sentence as those who committed GBH  (S.20), surely those who committed a higher degree of crime should have a higher sentence than those who committed a lower degree of crime.

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"Bodily harm"

"Bodily Harm":

The definition of "Bodily Harm" is developed through case law, for example in Smith cutting someones hair amounted to ABH. This means that there can be inconsistency in the law as no clear definition if given so the judges are free to extend or reduce the definition as they please.

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No Logical Connection:

No Logical Connection:

S.20 and S.18 both contain seperate offences (GBH and Wounding), wounding deals with  the method of injury, GBH with the extent of the injury- there is no logical link between them. Further more the wounding may only be relatively minor, yet S20 is a serious offence.

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Vague language

Vague Langauge:

The meaning of the word "immediate" in assualt is vague and unclear, it could be said that the courts confuse "apprehension of immediate personal violence" with "immediate apprehension of personal violence", for example the letters is Constanza may have caused immediate apprehension but may not have caused apprehension of immediate violence.

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