Considering Jogee: Joint Enterprise, Retrospective Effect, Fresh Appeals

18 February 2016

The Supreme Court has today handed down judgment in R v Jogee [2016] UKSC 8, finding that Joint Enterprise law has been wrongly interpreted for 30 years. A crucial consequence of this judgment is now the effect it will have on others convicted under “Joint Enterprise” law and their potential for appeal.

Garden Court North Chambers’ Matthew Stanbury has written a blog considering the retrospective effect of Jogee: Joint Enterprise and Retrospective Effect (The Public Lawyer).

Chambers’ Mark George QC has also written a Blog in which he concludes:

“…what the SC has done in this case is to acknowledge not that the law was wrong and needed correction but that the courts interpretation of the law was wrong.  It is that misinterpretation that has been corrected not the substantive law itself.  In those circumstances what the SC has said about fresh appeals seems to me to be open to doubt.  If people have been convicted of murder when on the law as it stood at the time they should not have been convicted of anything more than manslaughter that is an obvious miscarriage of justice that the courts should be keen to correct.”

Additionally, Chambers’ Nina Grahame presented a paper at the recent CLFS Crime Conference on “Joint Enterprise Liability – Jogee and the welcome demise of Parasitic Accessory Liability”.