- Conference
- 2015 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 10 September 2014
- Decision
- Carried
The legal doctrine of “joint enterprise” or “common design” imposes criminal liability on all the participants in a criminal activity for all the consequences of that activity. This doctrine has formed part of the UK criminal law for over 300 years but was rarely used until the start of the 21st century. In the last 10-15 years, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service have used it with increasing enthusiasm, to convict all of those present at the scene of a serious crime (usually murder) regardless of whether they were of any plans for the crime to be committed.
All those convicted under joint enterprise law are held to be guilty of the main offence. Someone who stands at the back of the crowd while another person on the other side murders someone else, can be given a life sentence just like the killer. The jury has to be persuaded that by being with the crowd, that person gave encouragement to the killer’s actions. Indeed people can have left the area before the crime is committed and still be found guilty.
The joint enterprise doctrine was not created by elected MPs in Parliament passing legislation. It was created by judges whose rulings and advice are cited by other judges in future cases. Judges alone are responsible for deciding the types and standards of evidence they admit under this law. In 2012 the House of Commons Justice Select Committee stated “the lack of clarity….. on Joint Enterprise is unacceptable”.
Joint Enterprise: Not Guilty By Association (JENGBA) is a campaigning organisation that aims to change the application of the law so that innocent people are not wrongly convicted on the basis of inadequate and misleading information. It also aims to overturn the convictions of innocent people wrongly convicted. 80% of the cases they support are from Black Communities.
Conference resolves that the National Black Members Committee should:
1)Send a letter of support to JENGBA;
2)Publicise the campaign through an article in Black Action;
3)Request that Labour Link raises the issue with UNISON linked MPs and peers.