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Embargoed:
00.01 am, 11 Jan 2007
DANGEROUS
ORGANISATIONS WILL ESCAPE MANSLAUGHTER PROSECUTION
UNDER NEW BILL SAY SENIOR LAWYERS
Large
dangerous organisations that kill will continue to
escape prosecution under new manslaughter offence
say senior lawyers.
In a legal opinion for the Centre for Corporate Accountability,
Peter Thornton QC and Francis Fitzgibbon (both from
Doughty Street Chambers) state that
“ it is worth asking whether this law will
have teeth at all, or whether it makes corporate
criminal liability for deaths as easy to escape
as it is at present."
The
legal opinion comes on the day (Thursday 11th January)
the bill will be discussed in Grand Committee in the
Lords. To
download legal opinion, click here
The
new offence requires that a substantial element of
the gross management failure within the organisation
that caused the death must be that of senior managers.
The opinion states that:
“It
takes no great foresight to see that in a large
organisation, such as a train operating company,
senior managers in the company will plausibly deny
they are ‘senior management’ …
as they do not have a ‘significant role’
in those areas of the company’s business that
directly concern safety and would engage liability.
If
individuals cannot be found who come within the
definition, the offence will not have been proved
– even though a death has resulted from the
company’s bad practices.”
The lawyers also argue that organisations will be
able to escape prosecution if they “can delegate
the function relating to safety to a level of management
which is not ‘senior’”.
They
also argue that the offence places a “disproportionate
burden on smaller organisations”. The opinion
states that whilst large organisation “which
have the capacity to cause the deaths of larger number
of people” will be able to escape prosecution
due to “the greater the distance between real
senior management and those taking decisions that
may turn out to cost lives”, smaller companies
“which have fewer layers of management and fewer
places for the senior managers to hide,” will
not be in such a position.
The
Centre for Corporate Accountability in a briefing
to the House of Lords is calling for significant amendments
to be made the Bill including changes that will allow
the offence to apply to
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unincorporated
bodies such as partnerships; |
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police
forces and prisons that cause the death of members
of the public in their custody through gross negligence; |
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deaths
that take place outside Britain but where the
management failure substantially takes place in
Britain. |
In
addition it argues that the courts must have much
tougher sentencing powers – including the power
to prevent companies from applying to public tenders,
and to make sweeping changes to the safety systems
within an organisation. These powers are available
in other jurisdictions.
To
download CCA briefing to Lords, click here
David Bergman, Executive Director of the CCA stated:
“This
Bill is not good enough in its current form. Apart
from real problems with the senior management test,
there are too many immunities provided to public
bodies and for British companies that kill people
overseas. New sentencing provisions are also also
essential. We are looking to the Lords to make these
changes , to make this a law capable of delivering
justice and accountability in these most serious
of cases.”
The
Centre for Corporate Accountability is a human rights
charity advising those bereaved from work-related
deaths, and working on issues of safety, law enforcement
and corporate accountability.
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