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Let me see if I can get Harriet Harman's proposed reforms to the murder laws straight. She wants to make it harder for men to get away with murdering women, but easier for women to get away with murdering men.
Put like that, she sounds unjust and more than a touch unhinged. But for all the cries of delight from liberals and outrage from conservatives, the real charge against Ms Harman is not that she is a man-hating maniac but that she is failing to attack the real source of injustice in the law.
True, there was a time when judges gave lenient sentences to men who had killed unfaithful wives. The courts regarded them as decent chaps who had committed a crime passionelle in a moment of understandable rage. Equally, women who murdered tended to use a weapon because they didn't have the brute force to kill with their own hands.
Possession of a weapon suggested premeditation, and premeditation meant more time in jail.
A sexist double standard to be sure, but one that the courts addressed years ago.
Judges already accept the “battered woman's defence”. Men who kill their wives or lovers have already seen their average jail terms rise.
So what is Ms Harman doing, apart from grabbing a few headlines while her beleaguered boss is on holiday? Failing to confront a criminal justice system that is an organised deceit of the public is the blunt answer.
Judges are now as over-burdened with regulation as every other public servant. In murder trials, they not only have to follow the dictates of the Sentencing Guidelines Council but must also impose mandatory life sentences that, in theory, make no distinction between mercy killings and gangland hits.
For the Government to issue yet more central directives will only make bad law worse. How severely abused does a woman need to be before she can plead manslaughter rather than murder? Does the refusal of man to leave an unfaithful wife or of a woman to leave a violent husband suggest that they may be plotting to kill them?
No one in Westminster can provide answers because every murder is different. Politicians ought to abolish mandatory sentences and allow judges and juries to examine each case on its merits. They won't because they are frightened voters will think them soft on crime.
They should grasp that the public already knows that the law is a sham and “life” does not mean life. The public has always accepted that some killers are more heinous than others.
For most people the slogan “the punishment should fit the crime” is not a dangerously radical notion. Unfortunately, it is still too radical an idea for New Labour.
Reader views (2)
I Don't believe it, not a word about the radical Islamic groups and their friends the Liberal left. Surely you could have managed to wangle them in somewhere Nick. You usually do.
- James Hennessy, london england, 31/07/2008 00:02
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It should be noted that this most dangerous of proposals is based a report submitted to the ministry of justice by an extremist feminist group. One of it`s authors recent published an article in the Guardian entitled "Why I hate men".
If Harriet Harman wishes to advance the cause of women, her first act should be to rid herself of her so-called justice minister Marie Eagle, before she causes any more damage to society.
- Simon Barrow, London, UK, 30/07/2008 21:25
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