Petition CHANGE THE JOINT ENTERPRISE LAW

If a perpetrator of a crime admits to the crime, anyone helping him or her should not be charged with joint enterprise, but with aiding and abetting. At present, someone can be charged with joint enterprise if he sends text messages encouraging the perpetrator to commit the crime. All people have free will and can choose whether to commit a crime or not (unless under duress or threats to life and limb).

If someone admits to a murder, for example, then that person rightly gets a mandatory life sentence. However, if someone encouraged that person to commit the murder or helped that person, he or she would be in danger of getting a mandatory life sentence for murder under the present system, no matter how big or small a part he or she played. A determinate sentence would be fairer, and that person should be charged with aiding and abetting, rather than with joint enterprise.

The government should abolish the Joint Enterprise Law.