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IPP & joint enterprise: left to languish?

08 March 2024 / Jon Robins
Issue: 8062 / Categories: Features , Criminal , Legal aid focus
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Jon Robins on why we need more politicians willing to support unfashionable causes

How speedily ministers can act when the world watches on and an election looms. At the time of going to print, parliamentary draftsmen are bashing out unprecedented legislation for the mass exoneration of hundreds of subpostmasters. They have been shamed out of years of inaction by ITV’s brilliant drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, broadcast early this year.

But how long does it take for politicians to address an injustice in normal circumstances—that is, in the face of political indifference, media disengagement and public complacency? There are thousands of people in prison who insist they shouldn’t be there. They are in prison as a result of two controversial (and very different) features of our justice system, both long identified as scandals: imprisonment for public protection (IPP) and joint enterprise.

The fight for reform is powered by two extraordinary campaigns by prisoners’ families: JENGbA (Joint Enterprise Not Guilty

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NEWS
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
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