Intuitive synthesis has had its long history of dominance within the common law world. It is known as the ‘art of sentencing’, by taking account into all factors within a case and by applying a judicial officer’s own intuition, determining and concluding with an appropriate sentencing outcome. This sentencing methodology over time, has attracted many criticisms, as judges and magistrates may be personally biased and influenced by different cultures, which are said to have caused the inconsistency within the criminal justice system.
If we are placing the importance of judicial discretion on a full spectrum, the concepts of intuitive synthesis with high importance, and mandatory sentencing marked with least, will possess their positions at …show more content…
a) Guideline judgements
During the period coming to the end of 20th Century, the Court of Criminal Appeal has handed down a number of decisions, known as guideline judgements. The purpose of these judgements is to create a more structured decision-making sentencing process for judges. It was stated that the courts have been giving out too many lenient sentences in many offences which have attracted criticisms from the Parliament, which were reflected by the significant increases in maximum sentences across those serious offence categories.
Soon after Jurisic, a guideline judgement on dangerous driving offences, the NSW Parliament has inserted a new section in Criminal Procedure Amendment (Sentencing Guidelines) Act 1988; and again in Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999, soon after the increased attention from Wong, it reaffirmed and envisaged the need and the continuation of the application of guideline judgements, to promote a more structured judicial discretion and consistency in sentencing outcomes.
b) Mandatory …show more content…
As aforementioned in the intuitive synthesis, judges and magistrates would take into account of all the relevant factors and surrounding circumstances of the accused, and tailoring an appropriate sentence by balancing the factors. Police and DPPs for instance, who are the decision-makers of mandatory sentencing offences, are lack of transparency in laying down the charges. Studies in the US have shown that there is a great distortion in its prosecutorial practice in filing the actual charge as often in the states that they may think the mandatory minimum offences were too harsh. The nature of their standpoint, of acting on behalf of the State and against the accused simply does not put them at an impartial and independent position.
If the first contact of an offender into the criminal justice system is the police, and the final stage of sentencing is now also controlled by prosecutors, then who is the true owner and who has the ultimate discretion now? What is the weight of the court come under this new criminal justice