Justine Davidge, Criminal Law Team, Law

I am suspicious of this timing concerning recent triggers for elite individuals who may face this law in either form:

The current common-law offence is broad and flexible. It lets prosecutors capture:

• abuse of power,
• serious neglect,
• corrupt motives,
• harmful misconduct
  even when the facts don’t fit neatly into boxes.

When they split it into:

1. Corruption / abuse of position, and
2. Breach of duty causing harm,

you get real-world problems:

1) Gaps open up between the two offences
Some ugly conduct won’t clearly fit either box. Defence lawyers live for those gaps.

2) Higher proof thresholds
Each offence has specific elements (duty, benefit/detriment, harm, fault state). More elements = more chances for cases to fail.

3) Loss of the “catch-all”
MIPO’s strength is also its danger: it’s a catch-all for serious abuse of office. Removing that safety net means some conduct simply won’t be criminal anymore unless Parliament drafts perfectly (which… history says it won’t).

4) The Law Commission itself acknowledged the risk of gaps
They openly worried about “gaps in the law” if MIPO were abolished without replacement — and those gaps can still exist if replacements are drafted too narrowly.

Warm regards,