Perverting the course of justice is an offence committed when a person prevents justice from being served on themselves or on another party. In England and Wales it is a common law offence, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Statutory versions of the offence exist in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand. The Scottish equivalent is defeating the ends of justice, although charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice are also raised in Scotland, [1] while the South African counterpart is defeating or obstructing the course of justice. [2] A similar concept, obstruction of justice, exists in United States law.
Doing an act tending and intending to pervert the course of public justice [3] is an offence under the common law of England and Wales.
Perverting the course of justice can be any of three acts:
Also criminal are:
This offence, and the subject matter of the related forms of criminal conspiracy, have been referred to as:
This proliferation of alternative names has been described as "somewhat confusing". [5]
This offence is also sometimes referred to as "attempting to pervert the course of justice". This is potentially misleading. An attempt to pervert the course of justice is a substantive common law offence and not an inchoate offence. It is not a form of the offence of attempt, and it would be erroneous to charge it as being contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981. [6]
This offence is triable only on indictment. [7]
In Canada, the equivalent offence is referred to as "obstructing justice". It is set out in § 139 of the Criminal Code:
139. (1) Every one who wilfully attempts in any manner to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice in a judicial proceeding,
(a) by indemnifying or agreeing to indemnify a surety, in any way and either in whole or in part, or(b) where he is a surety, by accepting or agreeing to accept a fee or any form of indemnity whether in whole or in part from or in respect of a person who is released or is to be released from custody,is guilty of
(c) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or(d) an offence punishable on summary conviction.(2) Every one who wilfully attempts in any manner other than a manner described in subsection (1) to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.
(3) Without restricting the generality of subsection (2), every one shall be deemed wilfully to attempt to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice who in a judicial proceeding, existing or proposed,
(a) dissuades or attempts to dissuade a person by threats, bribes or other corrupt means from giving evidence;(b) influences or attempts to influence by threats, bribes or other corrupt means a person in his conduct as a juror; or(c) accepts or obtains, agrees to accept or attempts to obtain a bribe or other corrupt consideration to abstain from giving evidence, or to do or to refrain from doing anything as a juror. [8]
In New South Wales, the equivalent offence is set out in Section 319 of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). [9] The maximum penalty is 14 years' imprisonment. In 1985 Murray Farquhar, the former Chief Stipendiary Magistrate of New South Wales, was convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice to have charges against Kevin Humphreys dismissed and sentenced to a maximum of four years in prison. [10] In 2009 Marcus Einfeld, a former Judge of the Federal Court of Australia, was sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison after pleading guilty to making a false statement with intent to pervert the course of justice. [11]
Australia
Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the court. A similar attitude toward a legislative body is termed contempt of Parliament or contempt of Congress. The verb for "to commit contempt" is contemn and a person guilty of this is a contemnor or contemner.
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Perjury is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding.
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Misprision in English law describes certain kinds of offence. Writers on criminal law usually divide misprision into two kinds: negative and positive.
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Common law offences are crimes under English criminal law, the related criminal law of some Commonwealth countries, and under some U.S. state laws. They are offences under the common law, developed entirely by the law courts, having no specific basis in statute.
Regina v Christopher Huhne and Vasiliki Pryce is the prosecution of the former British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne MP, and his former wife, Vicky Pryce, the former Head of the Government Economic Service, for perverting the course of justice, contrary to common law. Huhne became the first Cabinet minister in British history to resign as a consequence of criminal proceedings. On 4 February 2013, Huhne was convicted on the basis of his own plea after re-arraignment. The trial of Pryce began on the following day, lasting until 20 February 2013 when the jury were discharged by the judge. A re-trial began on 25 February 2013 and led to the conviction of Pryce on 7 March 2013.
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