GUT GEMACHT DEINE EHRE*

Readers who are not magistrates or district judges are obviously interested in the legal process and will make up their own minds as to the efficacy of the following short report from Germany.  Those who view these pages with experience of being sentencers  might ask themselves why the sentencing guidelines which restict thinking out of the box are often more of a hindrance than a help in appropriate sentencing.  Similarly visitors here who, apart from the previously mentioned groups, are football fans might be wary of misbehaviour whilst watching their team in action if a bench eg in London ordered a Spurs fan to buy an Arsenal shirt to compensate an Arsenal supporting victim or a Liverpool bench ordered an Everton supporting miscreant to do similarly with a Liverpool shirt for a Reds fan.  That unusual sentencing outcome is just what occurred to a free thinking judge  recently in Munich.   

Would that our senior judiciary and others had not allowed themselves to be overwhelmed by the greasy pole climbers at the Ministry of Justice in implementing the proposals for sentencing guidelines a decade or more ago and perhaps we would now have fewer in prison as reported in the previous post.  

*Well done your Honour