Police and Justice Bill

We supported conditional cautions which were intended to enable the rehabilitation of offenders or ensure that they made reparation for the offences that they had committed, but we believe that punitive conditional cautions, which attach a punishment to a caution, enter new and dangerous territory. First, an important issue of principle is at stake. By definition, cautioning should not involve punishment. The expression ““punitive caution”” is a contradiction in terms—a classic oxymoron, rather like ““military intelligence””, ““conservative intellectual”” or, for that matter, ““new Labour””. Punishment should be decided by the courts. It is wrong for prosecution to be involved. That is a legal principle which, as the Solicitor-General knows better than I, has been enshrined since the Bill of Rights, which provided"““That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void””." It is for that reason that the Magistrates’ Association has described the proposals as"““contrary to the principles of justice””." The Government’s argument that the principle is already conceded in relation to fixed penalties, which has been deployed during consideration of the Bill, is wrong. As Lord Lloyd of Berwick pointed out in the other place,"““fixed penalties are entirely different. The amount is fixed by statute or by-law; it does not in any way involve the prosecution’s discretion””.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 October 2006; Vol. 685, c. 124.]" These proposals will turn prosecutors into sentencers.