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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, unlike most of the speakers in the debate, I have never studied criminal law, but I have considerable experience of seeking justice and what that means. This amendment is based around the concept of justice and I support it for that reason. Our criminal law is based on justice, but justice is a far wider concept than simply that of our criminal law. If we are to put that concept and idea of justice into real effect in our society and therefore within our law, it will need at least to include both verdict and sentence. In this debate and in the discussion that preceded it, the danger is that we shall have verdicts that are just but sentences that are not. That cannot lead to a sense of justice in the community. A sentence of life imprisonment is rightly an extremely serious sentence. The problem with the present law is that it can bring that sentence into disrepute. We have heard terms such as "fiction" and "conspiracy" used about the present law during this debate. That cannot be right. We need to have confidence in both judge and jury; I was powerfully influenced by what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, said on that matter. If we are to have that confidence, I believe that this amendment or something like it needs to be put on to our statute book in the cause of justice.