Law in Action - Exporting prisoners, is Joint Enterprise racist, and Gaza-Israel
Download Exporting prisoners, is Joint Enterprise racist, and Gaza-Israel
Following the events of the 7th October in which around 1400 people were killed in Israel and over 200 taken hostage, Israel has been striking back against Hamas in Gaza. What does international law say about self-defence and proportionate responses to attacks? Joshua Rozenberg asks expert Professor Guglielmo Verdirame KC of Kings College.
The government is proposing to rent prison space abroad, due to a risk of prison overcrowding here. There is precedent: Norway sent prisoners to a Dutch prison, for example. How did that work out in practice? What lessons were being learnt? Prisons expert Professor Alison Liebling of Cambridge University has studied and evaluated the Norwegian-Dutch case.
How safe are Joint Enterprise convictions for murder? As a result of legal action on behalf of JENGbA (Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association), the Crown Prosecution Service has started to gather, and publish, data about those charged with Joint Enterprise homicide or attempted homicide. The figures show that young black men are vastly overrepresented among those charged under the Joint Enterprise doctrine. The convictions are difficult to appeal, as the threshold is high. In 2016 the Supreme Court admitted the law had "taken a wrong turn" on Joint Enterprise for 30 years. What went wrong, and is it being put right? We hear from Professor Felicity Gerry KC, who led the defence in the 2016 Supreme Court case, and from someone who served a Joint Enterprise sentence for murder, even though he says he was not present at the killing and only found out about it afterwards.
Presenter: Joshua Rozenberg
Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Researcher: Diane Richardson
Editor: Clare Fordham
Sound engineers: Neil Churchill and Rod Farquhar
Production coordinator: Maria Ogundele
Published on Tuesday, 24th October 2023.
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