Criticisms of the current law

• Give 5 criticisms of the current law

  1. Language problems
  2. lack of statutory definitions have enabled judges to be creative
  3. sentencing is illogical
  4. ”wounding” seems too minor
  5. AR & MR do not correspond
• What are three things the Law Commission has criticised the OAP Act 1861?

  1. complicated, obscure and old fashioned language
  2. complicated and technical structure
  3. complete unintelligibility to the lay person
• what are three pieces of evidence for language problems in the OAP 1861?

  1. language is inconsistent with expectations of lay people
  2. key terms are not explained in the act
  3. language is out of date
• give a case for judges being too creative?

  Ireland
• What case shows that wounding is too minor?

  Eisenhower
• Explain using Eisenhower why wounding seems to minor

  eisenhower defines wounding as breaking two layers of the skin. This can be minor but given it is not art of s.20 and s.18 we would expect it to be equivalent to GBH