The Malaysian Bar - Guidelines to standardise sentencing needed

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Guidelines to standardise sentencing needed

Monday, 30 January 2012 09:31am

©The Sun Daily (Used by permission)
by Alyaa Alhadjri and Pauline Wong

PETALING JAYA (Jan 30, 2012): A guideline to help judges standardise sentencing for all convicted offences will help to reduce "vast disparities" and restore the public's faith in the judicial system, the Bar Council human rights committee said.

Its chairman Andrew Khoo said the idea to set up a Sentencing Council is similar to what has already been practised in the United States, where a Sentencing Commission has been set up since 1984, with its guidelines implemented nationwide since 1989.

More recently, a Sentencing Council for England and Wales was set up in 2009, in an effort to promote consistency in delivering a sentence.

"Even for the same offence, sentences meted out can vary significantly," said Khoo, who was responding to Bar Council president Lim Chee Wee's proposal last Thursday to set up a Sentencing Council, which could provide guidelines on punishments for motorists who cause accidents involving death.

However Khoo clarified that the proposed guideline will cut across the board, looking at each particular offence under the law.

He also said the guideline will help to reduce appeals on sentences.

"If the original sentence is seen to be wholly disproportionate to the crime, then there is a higher chance for the convicted to appeal against it," he said.

"We are proposing that the council be made up of representatives from both the prosecution and defense lawyers, judges, Prison Department officials and the Welfare Department officials," he added.

Khoo said judges will also have a say in coming up with the guideline, so they should be welcoming the move.

Meanwhile, a source from the Attorney-General's Chambers told theSun that the proposed guideline should also go hand in hand with the upcoming amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code, to introduce plea bargaining.

"The council should not only look at retribution aspects of the law," he said.

However, human rights lawyer and former Bar Council’s constitutional law committee chairman Edmund Bon told theSun that the proposed Sentencing Council may interfere with the judicial process.

"The council may tie the hand of judges-- basically dictate to judges the type of sentencing which is to be meted out, when in fact it is based on jurisprudence. Sentencing relies solely of the discretion of the judge," he said, adding that maximum or minimum sentencing for a particular offence is already laid out in the existing legislation.

"Existing legislation have already laid out mitigating circumstances which judges can take into account when delivering their judgement.

"The problem of inconsistent sentencing cannot be solved by a sentencing council. The focus should be on training and education of judges," he said.

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