Home Office: Criminal Justice and Sentencing Bill (CJSB prefix)

This series contains records documenting the Criminal Justice and Sentencing Bill.

From 2024 Ministry of Justice

The records within this series were created as a result of Mr Secretary Peel's bill 'for improving the administration of Criminal Justice in England' being brought forward and committed. Mr Peel requested that he might be allowed to take the same course with this as he had with the preceding measure. This bill differed only in one respect from the statement which he had made when he obtained leave to bring it in, and that alteration was made on the suggestion of Lord Stowell, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty. Lord Stowell proposed to extend the principle of the bill, so far as it related to prosecutions for misdemeanour at the quarter sessions, to offences tried in the Admiralty Court. At the time, when persons were tried for offences committed on the high seas, and even for the most atrocious offences, the court had no power by law to award any indemnification to the persons supporting the prosecution. The object of the alteration was to give to the Admiralty Court a discretionary power of indemnifying individuals who came forward as prosecutors. On the common principle of justice, it was fair that the expense should be borne by the public.