Simon Natas, a solicitor specialising in human rights and criminal law at ITN Solicitors, sat down with CrowdJustice founder Julia Salasky to discuss joint enterprise, and the long road taken by his clients “Joint Enterprise: Not Guilty by Association” – JENGbA.
Joint enterprise - what is it?
Joint enterprise is a common law legal doctrine - which means that it’s not set out in statute, but rather, has developed as a result of judicial decisions over the years.
It allows “secondary parties” to be convicted for the same offence as a “principal”. In other words, if you encourage, or assist, the commission of a crime, and foresaw that a crime could happen, you could be convicted for exactly the same offence as someone who actually committed the crime. You don’t need to have intended that the harm caused by the crime take place, but only need to foresee that the crime might take place. So a man who intends to murder is given the same, mandatory life sentence as a man who foresaw that someone else might commit murder.
Simon reflected on the way the doctrine of joint enterprise has developed:
The problem is, it sets the bar too low … As soon as we risk conviction of the innocent then we have all sorts of problems; the criminal justice system ceases to deliver justice for anyone frankly, victims and defendants. The law of joint enterprise because of this concept of foresight, is setting the bar too low. It is making it too easy for the prosecution to get convictions.
And that means there are an awful lot of people in prison who have pretty good claims of innocence, because they were convicted because of this doctrine.
After the interview, Simon also mentioned the statistics on joint enterprise that show that people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds are disproportionately affected by the doctrine. The House of Commons Justice Committee Report on joint enterprise (which called for an urgent reform of the law) quoted research showing that 37.2% of those serving very long sentences for joint enterprise offences are Black/Black British, eleven times the proportion of Black/Black British people in the general population and almost three times as many as in the overall prison population.
Joint enterprise - why does it matter?
Simon explained that the Supreme Court hears a very limited number of criminal appeals every year, and it is only for a matter of true public importance that they consider an issue of law such as the implications of joint enterprise for secondary parties.
We asked Simon, why should someone whose life hasn’t been touched by the doctrine of joint enterprise care about what the Supreme Court decides when it considers this area of the law in October.
There are at least two reasons, he said.
"The criminal justice system is absolutely crucial for all of us. We don’t see it … but the criminal justice system is always with us. We’re aware that it’s functioning but we’re not really touched by it directly. But nonetheless it is crucial for all of us that it does function and does function well, because a society that doesn’t have a well-functioning criminal justice system, that delivers justice, is a malfunctioning society. So it is important that we get the law right – particularly where it deals with these really really serious cases like murder… Because we need people to have faith in the criminal justice system."
“But it’s also important,” he said, “because actually none of us knows when the criminal justice system might touch us directly, or touch someone we know – a relative, a friend. Some of the people who were convicted under joint enterprise were people who had very, very little contact with the criminal justice system. Some had, but some hadn’t. People who would never have dreamt that they could be on trial for murder.”
It’s important, he said, that we get this right.
Listen to the whole interview with Simon here:
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