§ Mrs. Peacockasked the Attorney-General on what criteria he will refer lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal under the proposed new legislation.
§ The Attorney-GeneralThe purpose of the proposed provision as at present formulated is to provide a means of enabling sentences which appear inappropriate on the basis of established sentencing principles, which raise novel issues of sentencing, or which otherwise raise questions of public concern, to be reviewed by the Court of Appeal consistently with the principle that these are matters for the courts. Assuming the proposed legislation is enacted in substantially its present form I would expect to use the new power sparingly and on the basis of a careful assessment of the extent to which the sentence in question falls outside accepted norms of its implications for the public interest. I do not equate the public interest with the vociferous media and other criticism which occasionally accompanies an excessively lenient sentence and which may be out of all proportion to its significance.