Informing Homicide Law Reform Through International Research

At the beginning of May, Tara Casey, Women’s Justice Lawyer at APPEAL, visited the offices of one of our pro-bono partners, Linklaters LLP, to launch a research project looking at defences in domestic homicide cases. The Law Commission is undertaking a multi-year consultation on reforms to the law on homicide in England and Wales. This review will look at offence structures, available defences and potential reforms to the sentencing regime.

The Women’s Justice team at APPEAL are particularly interested in how the law surrounding defences to homicide impacts women who kill their abusive partners. Despite growing awareness of the unique and dangerous circumstances victims of abuse find themselves in, women are still routinely convicted of murder where the available defences have not been properly utilised. Even previous law reforms that had the intention of allowing a partial defence to murder for victims of abuse have proven in practice to be out of reach for these vulnerable and traumatised women.

We recognise that the law is not working in these specific cases so we are conducting research in order that we can guide the Law Commission on best practice from around the world. We are very happy to be working with lawyers from Linklaters who have gathered a large team of volunteers to research how other jurisdictions are dealing with these cases. We will be looking at available defences to women who kill their abusive partners – what the law says and what happens in practice. We will also be looking at any innovative approaches to sentencing these women that might better reflect their reduced culpability. This work will take place over a number of months, and will include reaching out to organisations and academics in different jurisdictions to get a better perspective on what is happening on the ground. We are looking forward to working with our longstanding partners Linklaters LLP on this project and sharing our research with the Law Commission as well as other organisations who are working to change the law in this area.