The Solicitors (Northern Ireland) Order 1976

paragraph 7(7) of SCHEDULE of The Debt Relief Act (Northern Ireland) 2010 (Consequential Amendments) Order (Northern Ireland) 2016

Status not determined
Strict liability
Indictable only
Corporate, financial services, company law, employment, charity, electoral and tax

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

7 After Article 21A, insert— Solicitor practising within the moratorium period which follows the making of
a debt relief order 21B If
a solicitor continues to practise as
a solicitor while
a moratorium period under
a debt relief order applies to him and without having had the suspension of his practising certificate terminated under Article 16(4) or (7) or, if his practising certificate has effect subject to terms and conditions by virtue of
a direction under Article 16(4)(c) or (7), without complying with those terms or conditions, he shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for
a term not exceeding two years .

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds: a person
Conduct: breaching the provision
Fault element: Strict liability
Burden of proof: No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach paragraph 7(7) of SCHEDULE?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Debt Relief Act (Northern Ireland) 2010 (Consequential Amendments) Order (Northern Ireland) 2016.

Penalty

Mode of trial: Indictable only — tried in the Crown Court
Maximum fine: Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary): Not determined
Maximum prison (on indictment): 2 years

'to a fine' with no stated maximum.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Sentencing organisations: fines and the means of a corporate defendant All courts in England and Wales
How a fine on a company is arrived at from its turnover. Relevant far beyond the guidelines that state it, because a very large share of the offences in this corpus can only be committed by an organisation.
Fraud, bribery and money laundering offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2014
Covers fraud, false accounting, bribery and money laundering, including offences committed by organisations.
Imposition of community and custodial sentences: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
When a community order or custody is justified at all, and the presumption against short custodial sentences.
Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 June 2017
The sliding scale of credit for pleading guilty, from one third at the first stage of proceedings downwards.
General guideline: overarching principles All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2019
The guideline a court uses when there is no offence-specific guideline, which is the position for the overwhelming majority of offences created by statutory instrument. It sets out how culpability and harm are assessed from first principles.
Totality: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
How to sentence more than one offence at once so that the total is just and proportionate - frequently in point here, because regulatory prosecutions commonly charge several breaches of the same instrument.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status: Status not determined
Made: 2 March 2016
In force from: 7 March 2016
Extent: Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

This order makes consequential amendments to or in connection with disqualification provisions to take account of debt relief order and debt relief restrictions orders. The amendments made by this order are to primary and subordinate legislation which already provides for disqualification of persons from in the event of insolvency, so as to extend these disqualifications to persons subject to debt relief orders (under Part 7A of the Insolvency (Northern Ireland) Order 1989) and to debt relief restrictions orders (under Schedule 2ZA to the Insolvency (Northern Ireland) Order 1989). A regulatory impact assessment has not been produced for this Order as it has no impact on the costs on business.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis: the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence: 0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source

This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
The Debt Relief Act (Northern Ireland) 2010 (Consequential Amendments) Order (Northern Ireland) 2016 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
Corporate, financial services, company law, employment, charity, electoral and taxOther offences on the same subject
Offences created in 2016