The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 – Thirteen years in the making but was it worth the wait?

Abstract

Despite a gestation period extending over thirteen years, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 is a disappointment. It is limited in its scope, restricted in its range of potential defendants and regressive to the extent that, like the discredited identification doctrine before it, it allows its focus to be deflected from systemic fault to individual fault. As a result the Act may not curb the type of short‐sighted risk management decisions that can lead to the deaths of innocent workers, consumers and members of the public. Further, by requiring DPP consent to prosecute, the Act threatens to entangle corporate manslaughter prosecutions in the political process to an unacceptable degree. Despite these weaknesses, the symbolic significance of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 may ultimately transcend its methodological deficiencies.