Tories launch legal action to block Labour ‘two-tier’ justice measures in the courts_Nhy
The Conservatives are launching legal action in a bid to block ‘two-tier justice’ measures brought in under Labour.
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick is poised to mount a judicial review against the Sentencing Council after it announced astonishing moves to give minorities special treatment in the courts.
Under the measures – due to come into force in less than four weeks – all ethnic minorities and transgender people convicted of a crime should be treated differently by judges and magistrates.
Mr Jenrick has instructed a leading barrister to submit a ‘pre-action protocol’ letter to the Council warning them the measures will be challenged in the High Court, it is understood.
The Tories will also urge the Government to halt the measures by laying an amendment in the Crime and Policing Bill, currently before Parliament, if the Sentencing Council refuses to back down.
Mr Jenrick said: ‘I will be challenging this sentencing guidance in the courts on the grounds it enshrines anti-white and anti-Christian bias into our criminal justice system.
‘And if Labour won’t amend the law to prevent this, the Conservatives will.
‘There are few more important principles than equality under the law – we will fight tooth and nail to defend it.’
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick in Westminster this morning
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood pictured arriving at Downing Street for the weekly Cabinet meeting on Tuesday
The measures published yesterday by the independent Sentencing Council, an official body which draws up rules which must be followed by judges and magistrates, are due to take effect on April 1.
The guidelines completely undermined Labour’s flat denial of a two-tier justice system.
The new rules say it must ‘normally be considered necessary’ for the courts to commission a ‘pre-sentence report’ about criminals if they come from ‘an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community’.
They also include a long list of other ‘minority’ criminals to be covered by the measures, including transgender people, young adults and addicts. It should also apply to all women offenders, they add.
MailOnline can reveal the Sentencing Council was warned its controversial list would be ‘biased and conflicts with equality in sentencing’.
Background papers published by the organisation revealed that ‘many’ individuals who responded to a consultation said the new rules should not include the list of minorities.
‘There were strong opinions from all sides about this section, and many individual respondents, including some magistrates, did not believe there should be cohort list at all, mostly citing reasoning around the idea that the list is biased and conflicts with equality in sentencing,’ the documents said.
However, the concerns were ignored when the final version was published.
Keir Starmer leaving Downing Street for Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday
Poised to come into force from April, the fresh guidelines state a pre-sentence report would usually be necessary for someone of an ethnic, cultural or faith minority
Pre-sentence reports often set out reasons why a jail sentence would be detrimental for an offender, and Mr Jenrick said it would ‘make a custodial sentence less likely’.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood yesterday insisted she would attempt to get the measures reversed.
She said: ‘I will be writing to the Sentencing Council to register my displeasure and to recommend reversing this change to guidance.
‘There will never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch.’
But she offered no clear explanation of why the Sentencing Council’s plan had been allowed to reach the final stages of implementation.
It was discussed at high-level meetings on December 20 and January 24 – attended by Ms Mahmood’s ‘personal representative’ Claire Fielder, the Ministry of Justice’s director of offender policy.
Minutes of January’s meeting say: ‘Having agreed to various final minor amendments throughout the guideline, the council approved the final content in full and signed off the guideline for publication in March.’
Mr Jenrick said: ‘The Justice Secretary had a senior representative at the meeting this two-tier guidance was approved.
‘She’s either completely clueless or she and “Two-Tier Keir” support the changes and are desperately trying to save face in response to public outrage.’
The row over various groups being treated differently by the justice system flared last summer in the wake of the Southport murders.
Amid repugnant scenes of rioting, critics accused the police of acting more harshly against white, far-Right protesters than they had against other demonstrators, such as those aligned with Black Lives Matter.
Reform party leader Nigel Farage said at the time that the ‘impression of two-tier policing has become widespread’.
His remarks were rejected by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley grabbed a reporter’s microphone and knocked it to the ground when he was asked about the claim – and later apologised.
