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9
May, 2007
The
Government must keep its
promise to bereaved families –
pass the Corporate Manslaughter Bill now
You
can download this statement by clicking here
In
a statement on behalf of the Centre for Corporate
Accountability, David Bergman, its Executive Director
said today:
"After
a 10 year wait since the Labour Government first
promised to reform the law of corporate manslaughter,
the Government is reported to be considering dropping
the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide
Bill – rather than supporting a Lords amendment
that would allow the Bill to apply to police and
prison custody deaths.
In the CCA’s view such a threat is entirely
unacceptable. This Bill must pass – preferably
with the amendment, but without if necessary.
This Bill is far from being perfect in the CCA’s
eyes – but the new offence represents some
improvement on the current law.
It will make it easier to prosecute organisations
for killing people through gross negligence and
in this respect it will provide better prospects
for justice than the current law. That said the
CCA remains highly critical of the Government’s
decision not to change the law to impose health
and safety responsibilities upon directors, a legal
reform which campaigners, and indeed the Labour
Party itself, had long espoused as the necessary
complement to a new law on corporate manslaughter.
And which the Labour government had committed itself
to in 2000.
At the CCA we have campaigned since our inception
in 1999 for a change in manslaughter law that would
enable truly horrendous cases where gross negligence
by an organisation has caused a death to be successfully
prosecuted. In this, we have stood shoulder to shoulder
with bereaved families, trade unions, and other
health and safety organisations.
The need for such a law was evident not only from
the lack of accountability that followed major disasters,
but also from cases involving the deaths of individual
workers or members of the public.
As an organisation that has advised and assisted
hundreds of bereaved families following work-related
deaths, we know acutely the limitations of the existing
law and the hurt felt by these families when there
is inadequate justice.
Further, we have always believed that deaths in
custody – both in prison and police custody
– should form part of this law reform. As
part of a broad coalition campaigning for increased
accountability following deaths, CCA has never acknowledged
any separation of these deaths from other occupational
fatalities.
We can see no good reason why, if a person dies
in prison or in police custody as a result of the
gross negligence of senior management at that prison
or place of holding, there should not follow a manslaughter
prosecution. The life of a person in prison or in
police custody is worth no less than a worker on
a construction site or a member of the public in
a hospital, and the failure of such an organisation
is no less than any private construction company
that kills.
Moreover the legal advice that we have obtained
from senior barristers states clearly that the law
must apply to these custody deaths to avoid Government
being in breach of the European Convention on Human
Rights. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has
said the same thing.
The Government may not like the Lords amendment
– it will open up some Government bodies to
the possibility of prosecution if they have killed
through gross negligence - but it is absolutely
wrong for the Government to even consider dropping
this Bill on that account. Indeed, this creates
the suspicion of a Government looking for an excuse
to abandon a long-held legislative commitment, while
at the same time seeking to drive a wedge into the
coalition that has supported that legislative reform.
In short, the Government has a responsibility towards
the bereaved and all those to whom it has made promises
over the last decade to make sure this Bill becomes
law.
We would urge everyone involved in the passage of
this Bill to work together to get it made law. It
cannot be right to allow this historic opportunity
to pass and to do nothing, or to risk what so many
have fought for, for so long.
We want this Bill to pass with the Lords amendments
– it is the right thing. But, if there is
a lack of political will for this to happen –
illegitimately so, in our view - then it must become
law without them.
It is our strong hope that all those involved will
be able to discuss what compromises might be reached
to allow the Bill to become law in as effective
a form as possible."
You
can download the statement by clicking here
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.
Reference
"Health and safety responsibilities of
company directors and management board members:
2001, 2003 and 2005 surveys" Final report
Prepared by Greenstreet Berman Ltd, Page 80
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