The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Reviews of Sentencing) Order (Northern Ireland) 2011

Explanatory note

Reproduced verbatim from the instrument as published on legislation.gov.uk (Crown Copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0). The note is prepared by the responsible government department and is not part of the instrument itself.

Part 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, as amended by the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, empowers the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland (“the DPP ”), with the leave of the Court of Appeal, to refer certain cases to that Court where the DPP considers that the sentences imposed were unduly lenient.

This Order extends the range of offences in respect of which that power may be exercised to include the cases specified in the Schedule which are cases in which sentence has been passed on a person for: (i) the offences listed in paragraph 1 of the Schedule (all of which are offences under the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008); (ii) attempts to commit any of the offences listed in paragraph 1 of the Schedule; and (iii) offences under Part 2 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 (encouraging or assisting crime) in relation to which an offence in paragraph 1 of the Schedule is the offence (or one of the offences) which the person intended or believed would be committed.

This Order also revokes certain provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1998 (Reviews of Sentencing) Order (Northern Ireland) 1996 (“the 1996 Order ”), which were re-enacted as part of a consolidation exercise in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Reviews of Sentencing) Order 2006 but remained listed in the 1996 Order.