The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 provides the UK Supreme Court and the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland with the power to depart from retained EU case law after the end of the transition period. Draft regulations, introduced by the Government in October 2020, seek to extend this power to the Court of Appeal and other equivalent courts and tribunals. This article looks at the detail of the regulations and recent scrutiny that has taken place.
Documents to download
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Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]: Briefing for Lords Stages (176 KB, PDF)
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (1974 Act) aims to support the rehabilitation of reformed offenders by providing specific periods—subject to the sentence passed or disposal administrated—after which cautions and convictions become ‘spent’, and an individual is regarded as rehabilitated. The Bill aims to reduce the rehabilitation periods of various sentences, and introduce a rehabilitation period for sentences exceeding four years (48 months), which are currently never ‘spent’. There have been criticisms of the 1974 Act and previous governments have attempted to make changes. The most recent changes were made by section 139 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 which reduced the rehabilitation periods for both custodial and non-custodial sentences and increased the upper limit to include sentences of up to four years (and applying retrospectively).
Related Links
Documents to download
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Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]: Briefing for Lords Stages (176 KB, PDF)
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The Law Enforcement and Security (Separation Issues etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 allow for the implementation of the separation provisions in the UK-EU withdrawal agreement relating to law enforcement and security cooperation.
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‘Hate crime’ is used to describe a range of criminal behaviour that a victim or other person perceives to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards a person’s disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity. These aspects of a person’s identity are referred to as ‘protected characteristics’. There have been recent calls to extend the protected characteristics to cover sex and gender. This would see misogyny become a hate crime.
