What should the Code do about omissions?

Abstract

I yield to none in my admiration of the draft Criminal Code produced by the Law Commission's academic team, but everyone who studies it will have what he regards as improvements to suggest. So here is my item, relating to the team's proposals for omissions. I think the draft provides too great scope for offences of omission, particularly for serious offences of omission.This article is concerned with pure omissions. I call them ‘pure’ since omissions combined with action are counted as acts - largely because they are not subject to the peculiar difficulties of penalising omissions.