Did the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 get it right? Are all honour killings revenge killings?

Abstract

The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 substantially reshaped the law on provocation in England and Wales. The Act was prompted by the Government and guided by the Law Commission. It is unfortunate that the Commission and Government dismissed the issue of honour killings so quickly, on the basis of unconvincing research evidence. Honour killing cases were ruled out as potential provocation cases and left outside the scope of the defence of loss of control, by assuming that in honour killing cases the defendant must have acted in a considered desire for revenge. However, the Act is flawed by the assumption that all honour killing cases are revenge killings. In the light of the author’s research, this article will argue that there are honour killing cases the circumstances of which deserve to be left to the jury, as the desire for revenge is not the motive at all and the defendant was able to resist the pressure until the final triggering act.

Keywords

admissible evidence Coroners and Justice Act 2009 honour killings loss of control defence revenge killings

Introduction

Despite cultural complexities and powerful motivations, the voice of the defendant who has committed honour killing has rarely been heard. Indeed, in the study of honour killings much of the available data is newspaper-based reports of cases and reported incidents (Husseini, 2009; Kressel, 1981; Safilios-Rothschild, 1969; Sliman, 2005). Another source has been personal accounts, from those who are likely victims of honour killing, or who somehow have managed to save themselves from becoming a victim of honour killing, or from those who are close relatives or friends of a victim of an honour killing (Begikhani, 2005: 214–222; Kevorkian, 2003). Some data can also be collected from persons involved in the issue of honour killings in a professional capacity, such as lawyers, local administrators, psychiatrists, police officers, prosecutors and so on (Begikhani, 2005: 211; Jafri, 2008: 49, 50; Kevorkian, 2005). Finally, some data have been collected from court rulings and police records (Begikhani, 2005; Hoyek et al., 2005; Pimentel et al., 2005: 255; Sliman, 2005; Van Eck, 2003). As shown, the voice of the defendant has rarely been heard.¹ Their perspectives on the crimes committed have been overlooked and their personal circumstances have never been assessed properly in their full context.

By ignoring these accounts, it is perhaps inevitable that a general assumption has been created for such defendants, in which they are assumed to have been content with what they did, and where they are assumed to have acted in a considered desire for revenge. This firm but ill-informed assumption, which regards all honour killing cases as revenge killing cases, has been taken for granted by the Government and the Law Commission during the preparation of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (hereafter the Act). So, honour killing cases were ruled out as potential provocation cases and left outside the scope of the defence of loss of control. However, as the rest of this article will illustrate, this position is not based on adequate data, and the Act is flawed in assuming that all honour killing cases are killings where the defendant has acted in a considered desire for revenge. In this article, the author first will summarize the concept of defence of ‘loss of control’, and explain the contexts in which killings in the name of honour occur by reflecting the different interpretations of honour killing. Then, in the light of the author’s field work carried out in Turkish prisons, it will be argued that there are honour killing cases the circumstances of which deserve to be left to the jury, as the desire for revenge is not the motive at all and the defendant was able to resist the pressure until the final triggering act. By interrogating the question of what would be the response of the English law, if such cases were committed in England under similar circumstances by defendants with similar cultural understanding of honour and shame, it will be questioned whether there is a need to reformulate the English law in the context of the Act. It will also be argued that the position of the Act which does not allow assessing personal circumstances of the defendants in their full context may be considered disproportionate and inappropriate in some cases.

The concept of defence of ‘loss of control’

The Act came into force on 4 October 2010 (SI 2010/816). The Act, which was prompted by the Government and guided by the Law Commission, substantially reshaped the law on provocation in England and Wales. The partial defence of provocation was abolished by section 56(2) of the Act and replaced with a new partial defence of ‘loss of control’, which is set out in sections 54 and 55 of the Act.

The new defence has two routes or gateways. The first is loss of control, attributable to the defendant’s fear of serious violence from the victim against the defendant or another identified person, and the second is loss of control, attributable to a thing or things done or said (or both) which constituted circumstances of an extremely grave character, and caused the defendant to have a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged. The second route of the defence is narrower than the first, and it will only be applied in exceptional circumstances which constituted circumstances of an extremely grave character, and caused the defendant to have a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged. The defence also applies in cases where the defendant’s loss of control is attributable to a combination of the matters set out in both routes. However, in either route, in accordance with sections 54(1)(a) and (c), (2), (3) and (6) of the Act, there is a requirement of loss of self-control which does not need to be sudden, and it is necessary to determine whether a person of ordinary tolerance and self-restraint, and in the circumstances of the defendant, might have reacted in the same or a similar way to the defendant. In other words, the partial defence is now grounded in a loss of self-control that does not need to be sudden. But, the Act also introduces three safeguards. One of these safeguards, which this article has focused on, is that the new defence will not be applied in cases where the defendant has acted in a considered desire for revenge (s. 54(4)). The relevance of this safeguard will be discussed later in detail. The author now turns to discuss the different interpretations of honour killing.

Different interpretations of honour killing

Honour killing is the product of social interactions among members of society; and it is qualitatively different from other kinds of murders. It is governed by a particular cultural understanding of honour and shame, which is likely to be alien and inexplicable to both the jury and the trial judge in England. This is because, in the English-speaking West, including the UK, the locus of honour has shifted from the traditional extended family to the individual man and has been isolated from the larger societal context, which helps to explain the community’s role in honour killings, and how the concept of honour and shame traditionally operate (Baker et al., 1999). Therefore, the average member of the public serving on an English jury, who often has different moral and cultural values than the defendant, will have difficulty in understanding this particular concept which shapes the personal circumstances of the defendant and his set of values.

Indeed, the concept of honour, here, has a different meaning than this new individual honour system, reputation or prestige. In this context, a person’s honour is believed to be a sacred value and something more precious to him than even his life (Peristiany and Pitt-Rivers, 1992: 2; Van Eck, 2003: 25). It is an essential element of life. The loss of honour is equal to loss of life; and an ideal man lives for his honour. Therefore, a person may go to extremes in defence of this sacred honour by violating other sacred values and committing a grave sin, such as is killing (Baroja, 1992: 101).

In the light of available published data, there are three different interpretations of honour killings: notably, the particularistic or individualistic interpretation, the universal interpretation – a specifically feminist argument with the emphasis on patriarchy (Begikhani, 2005: 219; Hoyek et al., 2005: 111; Pimentel et al., 2005: 260; Sev’er and Yurdakul, 2001) and finally the cultural interpretation (Kressel, 1981; Kurkiala, 2003). In the particularistic or individualistic interpretation, there is a reluctance to explain the concept of honour killings in terms of cultural dimensions. Protagonists of the particularistic interpretation contend that killings have nothing to do with the culture within which they take place, but should rather be explained in psychological terms such as ‘temporary insanity’, or the ‘murderer was crazy’ or the killing was committed under the ‘heat of passion’. This view is often echoed by community leaders, as happened in the case of Fadime Sahindal, a 26-year-old Kurdish- Swedish woman shot dead by her father in order to restore family honour (Kurkiala, 2003: 6) and in the case of Mr Arash Ghorbani Zarin, an Iranian student at Oxford Brookes University.²

Under the universal interpretation, honour killing is regarded as a form of masculine homicide or ‘patriarchal killing’ (Sev’er and Yurdakul, 2001: 964, 994). It is argued that there is ‘a hidden machinery of oppression’ (Kevorkian, 2003: 582) against women in which women are regarded as subordinate to men. Females, therefore, should obey the males and the males should have the right to make them obedient. A mere suspicion that any female relative has defied the accepted social norms, by being disobedient and behaving improperly, will provide strong grounds for punishing, or even killing, them. In this context, honour killings may be the result of women’s active or passive resistance to comply with, or in Kandiyoti’s (1988) term, ‘bargaining’ with patriarchal rules regulating their sexuality and gender relations. However, patriarchy alone cannot explain the whole dynamic behind honour killings, and especially honour killing cases where the victim is a male,³ or gay,⁴ and cases where the defendant is a female. In such cases, the violence does not result from patriarchal attempts to control women’s sexual behaviour.⁵ As will be explained below, the violence, here, results from broader values and cultural norms that govern a different cultural understanding for the honour of a man and that of a woman.

In the cultural interpretation, the concept of honour killing is explained in terms of cultural dimensions (Kressel, 1981; Kurkiala, 2003; Safilios-Rothschild, 1969) and it is argued that the concept of honour killing is qualitatively different from other kinds of murders, because it is governed by ‘the specific logic of an honour culture’ (Kurkiala, 2003: 6). According to this logic:

if a woman refused to comply with the rules set down by her cultural community, her ‘immoral behaviour’ contaminated the whole family. If other strategies to make the women comply failed, the only remedy was for her male relatives to kill her in order to protect the family honour. Thus, the murders were culturally sanctioned and designed to uphold a specific moral order. (Kurkiala, 2003: 7)

Though the author agrees that violence can better be understood in the context of gender inequality and patriarchy by looking at violence broadly, in the view of this author, both the particularistic and the universal interpretations fail to grasp the whole dynamic behind honour killings, as they are based on the perception that ‘honour is a personal and private attribute of one individual’ (Pimentel et al., 2005: 254) and that a man is not dishonoured because of immoral activity of his female relatives (Pimentel et al., 2005: 259–260). Indeed, if the whole dynamic is taken into account, it is seen that the concept of honour here, to a large extent, is shaped by the perception that a man’s honour is dependent on the proper behaviour of female relatives. In this context, cultural dimensions and norms govern the different understanding of honour and shame, and also sustain subcultures which require killing or violence in return if the family’s honour is to survive.

The rules of this subculture are learned through association with others. As a result of interaction over time with those for whom the loss of honour requires killing or violence in return, the individual, as argued by Sutherland (1947: 6, 7), depending on the frequency, duration and intensity of his association with these views, comes to accept and to learn that killing, though itself criminal, is the correct response. The normative principle that the right to claim honour requires killing or violence in return is reinforced and transmitted from generation to generation. These norms are backed up with social rewards and punishment in forms of criticism, condemnation, respect and admiration. If these constraints and sanctions were not in place, the community or subculture would soon lose its separate identity. So, in the context of honour killing, it seems that it is mainly the power of the ideas themselves, rather than patriarchy or other particular social conditions such as poverty, that leads to violence. Thus, Wolfgang (1958), Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1981: 141, 156) found that the immediate causes of honour-related homicide are the values, norms and mutually held expectations in the group about how people should behave. Those ideas in the subculture may have arisen in the past for specific historical reasons, but they have been transmitted from generation to generation, even after those original social conditions had ameliorated or disappeared (Wolfgang, 1958: 188, 189). For so long as the norms endure, and, as long as the communities transmit the concept of honour, which inspires violence, from generation to generation, honour killing will tend to occur.

Thus, in many honour killing cases, the chain of events that culminated in the murder began with a mere suspicion or a rumour that a female relative has defied accepted cultural norms by being disobedient or behaving improperly (Faqir, 2001: 70; Hoyek et al., 2005: 131). There is also an explicit or implicit pressure on the defendant from the community, or extended family members, to restore family honour (Hoyek et al., 2005: 131; Husseini, 2009: 10, 14, 16, 151; Jafri, 2008: 78, 85; Kevorkian, 2003: 595; Onal, 2008; Sev’er and Yurdakul, 2001: 985; Van Eck, 2003: 185). Additionally, as the rest of this article will argue, there is a variable time span between the defendant’s first learning the possibility of shame occasioned by the dishonourable conduct, and the murder. As in the battered women cases committed after cumulative provocation, the defendant’s reaction may arise from a combination of anger, fear, frustration and a sense of desperation that has gradually built up, rather than the prompt reaction to provocation which is equated with anger, rather than despair or frustration. The defendant may reach a stage at which s/he decides that s/he cannot take it any more, and kills the victim with no apparent final provoking act or a relatively trivial triggering act. If the personal circumstances of honour killing defendants are not assessed properly in their full context, the lapse of time will be understood as amounting to revenge, since there was time to calm down. The defendant might be portrayed as a person who was simply looking for the best opportunity to kill during this time span, rather than a person who was looking for other remedies.

Needless to say, the limited data, and unconvincing research evidence available to date, have ignored these dynamics. They inevitably created a general assumption that in honour killing cases the defendant must have acted in a considered desire for revenge. However, the rest of this article will illustrate that this position is not based on adequate data.

The position of the Government and the Law Commission

According to the Law Commission, in honour killing cases the defendant may say that:

he (and it will normally be a ‘he’) planned the killing of the victim to uphold the honour of the family rather than to take revenge on the victim for something said or done. [However] there is likely to be a strong motive of revenge in such cases. The offender is seeking to make an example of the victim because she (and it normally will be a ‘she’) has defied tradition, custom or parental wishes in her choice of boyfriend, spouse or life-style. (Law Commission, Report, No. 304, Murder, Manslaughter and Infanticide [hereafter the Murder Report], 2006: para. 5.25)

The Law Commission suggests that in such cases, if raised, the proper course would be for the judge to withdraw the defence of loss of control from the jury (Law Commission, 2004, Partial Defences to Murder [hereafter the Partial Defences Report]: para. 3.71). The Government fully agreed with the Law Commission on this point and emphasized that honour killing cases will not satisfy the requirement that the circumstances were of an extremely grave character and caused a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged (Ministry of Justice, 2009, Summary of Responses and Government Position [hereafter Government Position]: para. 56). However, this position is not based on adequate data.

First of all, the references given by the Law Commission to justify their view about honour killing were research findings of Salma Choudry (the Murder Report: para. 5.25) and a report of Prof. Barry Mitchell and Dr Sally Cunningham submitted to the Law Commission and which summarized only three cases where the defence of provocation based on a different cultural understanding of honour and shame was raised (the Murder Report: para. 5.27 and Appendix C of the Report, para. C 9–14). Choudry’s research, where the experience of 14 Pakistani women living in Newham and suffering domestic violence was summarized, does not provide any clue about the defendant’s motive in honour killing and is not helpful at all in exploring whether the defendant had a considered desire for revenge. Indeed, Choudry herself appreciates that the size and sample of her research makes it impossible to make generalizations (Choudry, 1996: 1).The only finding that can clearly be drawn from her work is that the honour of the family or group is dependent on the proper behaviour of female relatives, a point with which the author fully agrees. The report and findings of Mitchell and Cunningham briefly considered the defences run in 93 homicide cases. Only three cases where the main motive of the defendant was to protect his honour were included. Two defendants killed their unfaithful wives and one defendant killed his unfaithful wife and their four children. In two of the cases, the defence of provocation was run, in the other both provocation and diminished responsibility were pleaded. When the defence of provocation was pleaded in these cases, the defendants argued that, according to their culture and religious beliefs, it was a significant disgrace for a woman to be unfaithful to her husband; therefore, it was provocative for them. Unfortunately, there is no further analysis of these cases, which might have given a clearer picture of the circumstances of the defendant and whether the defendants felt explicit or implicit pressure to kill. However, the conclusion of the Commission was that in the light of these cases, honour killings must simply be viewed as revenge killings (the Murder Report: Appendix C, para. C 12–14). So, without producing any convincing and reliable evidence, it has been assumed by the Government that in honour killing cases the defendant has a considered desire for revenge and during any lapse of time has been looking for the best opportunity to kill.⁶

The question of whether the defendant has acted in a desire to take revenge in a murder case is not a new issue for appellate courts in England. The idea that loss of self-control must be ‘sudden’ has been used as the way to avoid reducing all revenge killings to manslaughter. It was first declared in Duffy and accepted and reaffirmed in Camplin, and Ibrams and Gregory. However, the term ‘considered’ in the 2009 Act is a new qualification and it begs for explanation. In which circumstances the defendant will be regarded a person who has acted in a considered desire for revenge, or has acted only in a desire for revenge, needs to be interpreted and clarified by the appellate courts in England. In this context, the Law Commission said that ‘a person should not be treated as having acted in a considered desire for revenge if he or she acted in fear of serious violence, merely because he or she was also angry towards the deceased for the conduct which engendered that fear’ (the Partial Defences Report: para. 3.137). Here, the Law Commission intends that unsympathetic revenge killing cases like Baillie and Ibrams and Gregory will be outside the scope of the defence, but has tried to ensure that the slow burn reaction cases where the lapse of time between the last provocative act of the victim and the defendant’s response is long, and the defendant suffered from ill-treatment and violence by the deceased for a considerable amount of time, will not be excluded. Indeed, by explicitly referring to Thornton (No. 1) and Ahluwalia they stated that ‘[s]uch cases clearly call for the jury’s consideration of a partial excuse, despite the element of premeditation’ (the Murder Report: para. 5.24).

So, as long as the requirement of loss of control is met, the provisions of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 should produce the same result in battered woman cases such as Ahluwalia and Thornton where there is a slow-burn reaction. However, cases like Baillie and Ibrams and Gregory are unlikely to succeed. In the opinion of this author, the Act should not exclude the possibility accepted in Fantle, that the defence of provocation was available to a defendant who had an initial intention to kill, then abandoned this intention, but was subsequently provoked to kill the victim. By analogy, in honour killing cases where the defendant did not act in a considered desire for revenge, initially understood that he might have to kill the victim because of honour, then tried his best to prevent the killing, but later killed the victim by losing self-control after a final provoking event, such a case should not be excluded from consideration by the jury. So, contrary to what was suggested by the Law Commission and the Government, the loss of control defence could in theory apply to honour killing cases which appear to be revenge killing. The author’s research uncovered such cases committed under these circumstances which seem to deserve to be left to the jury, as the defendant was able to resist the pressure until the final triggering act.

What follows is the summary of the findings of the author’s research which suggest quite strongly that the conventional image of honour killings and the defendants who killed for honour is a flawed view. The real picture is much more complex. It is simply wrong to categorize all honour killing cases as revenge killings. In these cases, the defendants feel pain, anger, desperation, shame and humiliation, or betrayal by relatives, but the desire for revenge is not the motive in the majority of cases.

The reliability of an assumption, which regards all honour killing cases as revenge killing cases, can only be verified by assessing the personal circumstances of the defendant in their full context which requires exploring in-depth the experiences of defendants who committed honour killings. Then, it can be proven whether a general assumption in law is correct or whether there can be honour killing cases where the defendant did not act in a considered desire for revenge. As convincingly argued by Kulczycki and Windle (2011), in the context of honour killings many previous studies have ignored the accounts of the defendants.

Due to the limitations of existing data, permission was requested from the Turkish Ministry of Justice to conduct interviews with prisoners who have committed and have been found guilty of murder committed in the name of honour. This allowed the author to explore in as much detail as possible what was felt, lived or experienced by the defendants in such cases and examine their personal circumstances before and at the time of the murder. However, a question may be raised whether using cases from a different jurisdiction to argue the possibility of injustice in English law weakens the argument of the article. Circumstances in each country and jurisdiction are unique due to geographical, social and cultural variations. But it is argued that this is not generally true for honour killings. In communities where honour killings tend to occur, and in Turkey where this study has focused on empirically, defendants tend to have a similar cultural understanding of honour which is shaped by the perception that a man’s honour is dependent on the proper behaviour of his female relatives.⁷ In this context, mutual relationships between males and females including marriage, pre-marital and adulterous sex, are strictly controlled and regulated by institutions and associations in accordance with this perception and cultural norms.

Although social conditions that gave rise to such values and perceptions are supposed to be transformed when people immigrate, these values still find a way to be transmitted from generation to generation with endogamous marriage practices and remain intact in the communities of multi-cultural western societies where honour killings tend to occur, such as the UK⁸ and the Netherland (Van Eck, 2003). Indeed, in communities of the UK where honour killings tend to occur, there are superficial social changes rather than deeper cultural changes. Therefore, when it comes to the concept of marriage, family values or women’s sexuality, these communities can change, but only if the change can be accommodated and internalized with their cultural norms. It should not be assumed that when people immigrate to the UK, they only bring their traditional clothes and foods with them; they also bring their own values, traditions and culture. The received cultural norms govern the different understanding of honour and shame which inspires violence, equates loss of honour with loss of life and sustains subcultures where honour killings tend to occur. Certain characteristics of these communities, like endogamy, create the environment conducive to the transmission of these values and ideas from generation to generation.⁹ In such communities, therefore, people are surrounded by those for whom the loss of honour requires killing or violence in return. As explained earlier, as a result of interaction over time with these people, the individual, depending on the frequency, duration and intensity of his association with these views (Sutherland, 1947: 6, 7), comes to accept and to learn that killing, though itself criminal, is the correct response. In such communities, the defendant’s dependency on the community is clear, and where there is no help available, or the community is reluctant to intervene, this markedly increases the difficulty of leaving, makes the defendants more desperate, and may well tip them over into killing. Of course in small towns or villages, a person’s interaction with those for whom the loss of honour requires killing or violence in return, will be more continuous, frequent and intense. Therefore, they will act against dishonourable conduct more quickly than those who live in places where kinship networks are not tight and there are no close and continuous relationships with others. For so long as the norms endure, and, as long as the communities transmit the concept of honour, which inspires violence, from generation to generation, honour killings tend to occur, despite other cross-cultural social interactions, communications and exchanges among people in a multi-cultural society. This to some extent explains why honour killings still occur in the communities of the UK and in other multi-cultural societies, despite the fact that there are adaptations to wider society.

This also suggests that defendants who have committed honour killings are generally prompted by similar motives and dynamics. In communities where honour killings occur the defendants tend to have similar circumstances, and experience similar dynamics and the chain of events that culminate in murder some of which will be reflected below. Seen from this perspective, it is worth interrogating what would be the response of the English law, if such cases were committed in England under similar circumstances by defendants with a similar cultural understanding of honour and shame reflected in this article.

Home Office statistics suggest that each year 12 honour killing cases occur across several different UK communities, including Sikh,¹⁰ Christian and Muslim (Siddiqui, 2005: 277) and when considered there are honour killing cases committed by Turks in multi-faith and multi-cultural societies such as the UK,¹¹ Germany¹² and the Netherlands (Van Eck, 2003), the problem becomes more evident. Therefore, the possibility of injustice in the context of the Act and the issue of defendants from a different ethnic and cultural background should be discussed on the basis of convincing empirical data, rather than the unconvincing research evidence which is what the Law Commission relied upon.

What does the research say?

Background of the research

The findings reflected here are based on field work for which the author visited 65 prisons in Turkey and conducted interviews with prisoners who have committed and have been found guilty of murder committed in the name of honour. Special permission was obtained from the Turkish Ministry of Justice to visit 65 prisons in Turkey, and the interviews took place in Turkey from June 2008 to November 2008.

The interview was designed to be semi-structured and divided into three parts: (1) questions related to personal information; (2) questions related to the offence; and (3) questions related to the concept of honour. Here, for the purposes and scope of this article, the author is mainly going to reflect on his findings related to the second part of the interview. Part two of the interview began with the question ‘Can you tell me the story of the crime for which you are serving this prison sentence?’ and then continued with another two open-ended questions ‘What has been the attitude towards you of people in your community before and after the offence?’ ‘Can you explain how you felt about committing the offence? Were there any remedies other than killing? Do you now regret committing the offence?’ These questions gave more freedom to the defendant to talk about the attitude of people towards the defendant and the defendant’s own feelings. Each interview took two hours or slightly longer. Sixty-one prisoners, 54 male and seven female, took part in the research.

Participants were selected because their personal file in the prison had a reference which showed that they had committed a murder in the name of honour. In order to do that, the author first went through all murder cases in each visited prison and read all court rulings and personal records in all murder files. In some cases, which at first appeared as murder cases committed in the name of honour, after conducting interviews in-depth the author found that some participants did not commit a murder in the name of honour, and honour was not their motive at all. It was jealousy, pride, domestic and financial conflicts and disagreements between the deceased and the defendant, or the suspicions of the defendants which were the main reasons behind the murder. So, the author left 22 interviews out of the analysis. Therefore, the findings of the field work reflect 39 different cases and the views of 39 prisoners, 34 male and five female.

Through reflecting the voice of defendants, which has rarely been heard, this article revisits the concept of partial defence of loss of control in the context of honour killing. In this context, the focus of the article will be on honour killing cases, where the provocation is the result of a combination of the victim’s conduct, the defendant’s emotional stress and in many cases explicit or implicit pressure from the community or extended family members over a long period of time which caused the defendant to reach the point where s/he decides that s/he can take no more and kills the victim, with or without a final triggering event. In no case was there premeditation. Then, the article interrogates the question of what would be the response of the English law, if such cases were committed in England under similar circumstances by defendants with similar cultural understanding of honour and shame. The article does not aim to make a comparison between English and Turkish law. Instead, in the context of the Act and honour killings, it aims to address a real problem in the English law as to how far the individual offender’s beliefs, cultural background and personal circumstances should be regarded as relevant when deciding if s/he should be guilty of murder or manslaughter. Space does not permit the presentation of more excerpts from interviews and fuller factual details of the cases. It is hoped that the excerpts provided below will be enough to challenge the assumption that all honour killings are revenge killings.¹³

Some findings of the research

The author’s research shows that in some honour killing cases the defendant is in an acute dilemma, having to choose whether to kill and receive the punishment imposed by the law, or not to kill and receive punishment from his community or extended family members in the forms of insult, humiliation, exclusion and condemnation.

Consider the following excerpts from interviews conducted with male and female defendants who committed honour killing.

My daughter used to run away. I used to spend most of my time to look for my daughter and bring her back. I used to go to the train station at night, where youngsters hung around, to look for my daughter. But many people, including my own brothers, did not believe me. They were accusing me of forcing my daughter into prostitution. They used to say ‘You found a way to earn easy money, soon you will be a patron.’ When my daughter was at home early this time they would say ‘Today, shift is over early. If it goes like that you will set up your own business.’ At nights, even after midnight, they would shout ‘You are running a house, you are doing this business; you are dishonourable. Your daughter is a slut.’ As I spent most of my time looking for her, I was having difficulty to find a permanent job as a concrete worker. Such treatment went on for a long time. Then I thought that moving to another town might solve my problem. However, when I was packing, my daughter objected to the idea of moving and said ‘I will do it my own way. I chose my path and I am happy with it.’ So, I lost my control and killed my daughter by using a rope that I was using for packing. (Interviewee-16, male)

As he [a distant relative] continued to sexually harass me, people started to treat me differently and they started to treat me as if I was a tart and infidel to my husband when he was in prison; and that it was me who should be blamed for what had happened. People did not believe that I was raped. I felt as if I was excluded … OK, they used to talk with me but, when I turned my back they used to gossip behind me about my infidelity. Many people started to believe that I betrayed my husband when he was in prison … One day, he threatened me and said ‘there is nobody left to protect you, be my woman, eventually I will have you’. So, I started to shoot him with the gun that I used to carry to protect myself. I shot randomly. I just shot. One bullet hit his chest and he died. We were in the market and police were around and they took me to the station. (Interviwee-36, female)

I was married. I had a car accident in 1993 and was hospitalized for six months. After the accident I was having difficulty to move and I had an implant put into my leg. We were living in a village, and my wife was insisting on moving to the town. I was always refusing her. Because, the only thing I knew was farming; I could not do any job in the town. I always heard rumours that she had a lover. But I did not take the rumours seriously. This went on for a long time. At the end of year 2000, she ran away to her lover who was originally from our village but living in the town. I decided to divorce her and started the divorce process. But before divorce, she, along with her lover, came back to the village. Their house was opposite to mine. I was seeing what they were doing there … Villagers used to come and say ‘when are you going to solve this? What sort of a man are you? How do you accept this?’ … I used to not take them seriously. Some villagers used to congratulate my wife’s lover and say ‘Well done you got what you have always wanted.’ Then, one day when her lover was present my wife said ‘I am going to take everything from you. Look, this is my new man, come and take me from him if you can.’ I took my rifle and started to shoot. She died and her lover was wounded. (Interviewee-8, male)

When I returned to my village, I learnt that my daughter was raped by a villager and got pregnant. I tried to find this villager and started to search for him. But, I found that he had already gone and nobody knew exactly his whereabouts or his address. How was I going to find him? What was I going to do? I could not find the answers of these questions and I could not decide what to do. So, I attempted to commit suicide by taking some pills. I do not remember how it happened, but my wife and one of my neighbours took me to the hospital. After being discharged from the hospital I went to the Prosecution Service and asked them to find this rapist and I returned to my village. On the third day of my return, I committed the murder. I mean everything happened within three days. During these three days, I did not want to go out; I did not leave my house at all. I always thought, outside my house it is as if everybody knows all that has happened. In my village there were 60 houses and after my unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide, only two individuals came to my home to check on me. Even my wife kept telling me that we did not have any right to go out and look at people’s faces … All distress and pressure was on me. It was 9–10 am in the morning. My wife, my daughter and I were having breakfast. I drank my tea. The cups were taken away. I was sitting; I suddenly stood up and said ‘I am going to kill you.’ From the wardrobe I took my son’s tie and put it around my daughter’s neck and strangled her with this tie. My wife could not react at all. She could not attempt to intervene. So, she could not prevent me. And then I took the scarf from my wife’s head that she wore, and strangled her too with this scarf. (Interviewee-30, male)

As demonstrated in such honour killing cases, what forced the defendants to kill, in the case of the male defendants, was the escalating effect of continued insult, taunting, belittling, exclusion and explicit and implicit family and social pressure. In the case of female defendants the crucial factors were the escalating effect of continued insult, exclusion, pressure from the community and, sometimes, physical or sexual abuse by the deceased.

What may not be fully understood, in such honour killing cases, are the power inequalities in the defendant’s relationship with others. In these cases it could be said that the community, and, especially in the cases of female defendants who killed their male abusers or rapists, the abusive male victims, were physically, socially and emotionally in a more powerful situation than the defendant, and that there was no available support in the community and nowhere else to turn. Indeed, as happened in the case of Alican Yılmaz,¹⁴ the degree of pressure and threat might amount to a form of duress, in which the defendant has to make a choice – either he kills the female relative to restore honour, or he is killed. As reflected by a father in Kevorkian’s (2003: 595) study, it is very difficult to resist this kind of pressure, and it is not as easy as many people think to say ‘it is none of your business’.

Moreover, in such an environment it is almost impossible for anybody to act as an intermediary, and to intervene to prevent the commission of the offence. People in the community do not want to intervene or to break silence. They keep their nose out of the problem; as it is a family’s business. The author’s research shows that in only 13 cases the defendant mentioned that they dared to speak with somebody, or somebody dared to speak with them to ask them to stay away from the idea of killing, and to act wisely. Those wise people in seven cases were friends (interviewees-6, 10, 11, 19, 27, 29, 34), in one case an eldest daughter (interviewee-16), in two cases where the victim was a wife, the defendant’s mother and father (interviewees-2 and 8), in one case the defendant’s mother and sister (interviewee-13), in one case the defendant’s mother (interviewee-15) and, finally, in one case a villager (interviewee-7). In the remaining cases the defendants did not talk with anybody else, or nobody dared to talk with them about acting wisely.

The author’s research also shows that there is a very variable time span between the defendant’s first learning of the possibility of shame occasioned by the dishonourable conduct, and the murder. This time span varies from one day to seven years. Thus, in above cited cases interviewee-8 tried other remedies, and waited for seven years, interviewee-16 tried other remedies and was able to resist the pressure for eight months until the final triggering act and, finally, female interviewee-36 tried other remedies and waited for almost a year. The length of this time is dependent on the defendant’s perception of honour, the point at which the defendant becomes sure about his suspicion, whether he will try to find other remedies and, finally, whether there is explicit or implicit pressure from the extended family members, to restore family honour. The final factor that might have an impact on the length of time between learning of the dishonour and the murder is where the defendants live at the time of the murder. In cases where the length of time between the dishonour and the murder is a month or less, five cases out of a total of nine were committed by those who were living in a village at the time of the murder.

Figure 1.

The time span between learning of the dishonourable conduct and the murder in all 39 cases.

If the personal circumstances of honour killing defendants are not assessed properly in their full context, the lapse of time will be understood as amounting to revenge, since there was time to calm down. In such honour killing cases where there is a significant lapse of time between the defendant’s learning of the dishonourable act and the defendant’s response, that lapse of time may go to refute any suggestion that the defendant was not master of his mind at the time of the killing and lost his self-control. The defendant might be portrayed as a person who was simply looking for the best opportunity to kill during this time span, rather than a person who was looking for other remedies.

However, the field work has established only 13 cases out of a total of 39, where the defendants displayed a desire for revenge, evidenced by planning their attack, following or chasing their victim. In four out of these 13 cases, the defendant did not have a desire for revenge at the beginning; defendants sought other remedies but, when other remedies failed, the desire for revenge grew, and then they planned their move. In five cases out of 39, the defendant displayed the element of revenge as there was evidence of premeditation.

In the remaining 21 cases, there was no sign of revenge or premeditation at all. The honour killing was either the result of a constant build-up of pressure, with no apparent final triggering act (as happened above in the case of interwievee-30) or there was a sudden loss of self-control as a result of a quarrel between the defendant and the deceased (as happened above in the case of interviewees-8, 16, 36). Though the author accepts that there are honour killing cases that are carefully planned, and even committed under the pretence of an accident or a suicide, there are also honour killing cases where the defendant can, to some extent, be seen as also the victim of circumstances and pressure. The Government’s position and the Act offer nothing for the bulk of these honour killing cases, and this is conducive to causing injustice.

If honour killings are committed for revenge, we might expect defendants to show no remorse. Though for the interviewed defendants, initially a feeling of relief, rather than remorse, is common at the start, later on when asked ‘Do you now regret committing the murder? Would you consider killing again if you met the same or similar circumstances after your release?’ at least 44 per cent of the male and 60 per cent of female defendants, showed signs of regret and remorse by saying to the author that they would not consider killing again after their release if they met the same or a similar situation. Moreover, three defendants, two male and one female, attempted to commit suicide soon after the murder, and as seen above one male defendant attempted suicide before the murder. Some defendants showed signs of remorse immediately after the murder by giving water to the victim (interviewee-15), by hiring a cab and sending the victim to hospital (interviewee-13), by taking the victim to hospital (interviewee-1) or by asking passers-by to take the victim to the hospital (interviewee-31) and, finally, by changing the position of the victim’s neck to make her breathe more comfortably (interviewee-9).Therefore, the findings of the author’s research suggest quite strongly that the conventional image of honour killings and the defendants who killed for honour is a flawed view.

In England and Wales, a mandatory life sentence must be imposed for an offender found guilty of murder. The judge will set a minimum term which an offender must serve before s/he can be considered for release by the Parole Board. If released, offenders serving a life sentence will remain on licence for the rest of their life and may be recalled to prison if they are considered to be a risk to the public. Unless full account is given of what they have experienced as a relevant factor not only affecting the gravity of the provocation to them but also affecting their capacity of self-control, and their response to the provocation, such honour killing defendants will be found guilty of murder, a crime attracting the greatest moral stigma and a very long minimum term in a life sentence, that may be considered disproportionate and inappropriate. In such a case, the defendant should be given the opportunity to argue his case properly, by calling evidence, whether cultural or non-cultural, from expert witnesses to enable the jury to make an informed decision about the reasons behind the defendant’s loss of self-control, to decide whether it could reasonably be expected from the defendant to do more than what he did and to help them understand the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the killing. The admission of such policy and cultural information in court would provide a more accurate portrayal of factors influencing the defendant’s response. The jury, then, after hearing all the evidence will determine the appropriate degree of culpability, and the judge will be better informed on sentencing.

So far in English courts, cultural arguments have become available to female defendants mainly when they conform to stereotypical representation of the ‘non-western other’ (Phillips, 2003: 515). In this context, a classic example from the English courts is R v Adesanya,¹⁵ where a Nigerian mother was prosecuted for the ceremonial scarring of the cheeks of her nine and 14-year-old sons. In this case, though Mrs Adesanya was convicted, she was given absolute discharge.

Other example is Ahluwalia. In Ahluwalia, the defendant, a woman of Asian origin, who suffered for a long time at the hands of her abusive husband, waited until her abusive husband was asleep, brought a can of petrol, poured it on the victim and his bed and then set it alight. In that case, despite the element of premeditation, the trial judge nevertheless left the issue of provocation to the jury (Ahluwalia, at p. 896). At her first trial, though she was convicted of murder, here, again there was sympathy for Ahluwalia, as she was represented as a passive victim of an abusive arranged marriage who was driven to desperate measures which was to kill her abusive husband (Phillips, 2003: 523).

Indeed, the Court of Appeal’s decisions in such battered women cases as Thornton, and Ahluwalia, and such domestic violence case as Pearson show that there is sympathy for the defendants who suffered at the hands of the deceased.¹⁶ But the same degree of sympathy and generosity has not been shown in the non-domestic cases, such as Ibrams and Gregory.¹⁷ So, the question in honour killing cases is whether the same degree of sympathy and generosity will be shown to defendants by applying the principle of cumulative provocation which tempers or even circumvents the traditional requirement of sudden loss of self-control. There can be such honour killing cases.

Take the above cited cases of interviewees-16 and 30 where the defendants all suffered ill treatment, and responded to pressure from family and extended family members to kill. Or take the case of female interviewee-36 where the defendant was a victim of long-term sexual harassment from one of her relatives. As happened in these cases, the lapse of time between the last provocative act of the victim and the defendant’s response can be long, but the provocative conduct may also have extended over a long period. The defendant may reach a stage at which s/he decides that s/he cannot take it any more, and kills the victim with no apparent final provoking act (see earlier the case of interviewee-30), or a relatively trivial triggering act (see above the case of interviewee-16 and female interviewee-36). As in the battered women cases committed after cumulative provocation, the defendant’s reaction may arise from a combination of anger, fear, frustration and a sense of desperation that has gradually built up, rather than the prompt reaction to provocation which is equated with anger, rather than despair or frustration, and which requires a sudden loss of self-control and quick response to provocation.

However, in honour killing cases, English law and courts resist the idea of educating and informing the jury through expert witnesses to enable them to make an informed judgement about the reasons behind the defendant’s loss of self-control. They reject taking the defendant’s culture, ethnicity and other personal characteristics into account on the issue of self-control. As will be explained below, legal principles laid down in Camplin, and especially in Turner, regard such evidence as inadmissible, and the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, which is consistent with authority laid down in Turner, Camplin and Holley, will continue to regard such evidence as inadmissible.¹⁸

Criticism of Camplin and Turner

In Camplin it was ruled that when deciding whether the defendant has exercised a reasonable standard of self-control, his capacity for self-control should be judged against the capacity of an ordinary person who has the same sex and similar age of the defendant for the purposes of the reasonable person test. Other characteristics of the defendant are relevant only if they affect the gravity of the particular provocation to him. So, unless the defendant has been taunted about them, or provocation is directed at them, other personal circumstances, characteristics or mental and physical peculiarities of the defendant, such as being disabled or sexually impotent should be ignored (Camplin, at pp. 173, 175 per Lord Diplock; at pp. 182, 183 per Lord Simon). The judge, as a matter of settled legal principle deriving from Camplin, is now obliged to direct the jury that they must ignore ethnic and cultural factors when they consider the defendant’s capacity for self-control and how an ordinary man would react to provocation of that type and gravity.

In Turner (at p. 841), it was ruled that: ‘Jurors do not need psychiatrists to tell them how ordinary folk who are not suffering from any mental illness are likely to react to the stresses and strains of life.’ The effect of Turner has been to exclude expert evidence that does not strictly deal with mental abnormality or mental disorder, on the basis that other psychological functions and pressures are matters of common knowledge and experience that a jury can understand without the help of experts. The case of Turner involved the provocation defence, the Court of Appeal holding that expert evidence was inadmissible on the question of how a mentally normal person might react to extreme provocation. As rightly explained by Colman and Mackay, in cases where the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the killing falls short of a qualified defence of diminished responsibility but involves a situation of stress and provocation not well understood by ordinary people, further explanation by experts might lead to a different verdict. Such evidence should be admissible to explain the complex reasons that lay behind the defendant’s loss of control (Colman and Mackay, 1996: 90).The proper task for the medical and psychology expert is to help to explain the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the killing, the nature of his act and the reasons behind the defendant’s alleged loss of self-control. Then, the question for the jury is whether a man or woman of reasonable firmness with the defendant’s characteristics, which include his culture and circumstances, might have reacted to the provocative conduct in the way that the defendant did, rather than whether an ordinary person from an entirely different culture and background would have been provoked, and acted as the defendant did. Of course, when the experts give their evidence, there is some risk of intruding into the jury’s province. However, as Lord Morris explained in Camplin ‘to consider the mind of some different person, and to consider what his reactions would have been if comparably provoked, could involve an unreal test’ (Camplin at p. 176).

When arguing this, however, the author is aware of the fact that culture is neither a static nor a unified phenomenon, and is fully aware of several key arguments advanced against the use of the cultural arguments in the criminal trial whether as defence or evidence. Though, the critics tend to employ a more nuanced understanding of culture to refuse the stark opposition between either feminism or multiculturalism,¹⁹ the positions taken by some commentators on these issues appear to be strongly motivated as pro-defendant or pro-victim (Coleman, 1996: 1155). In this context, with the emphasis on sexual oppression, power inequalities and problems within communities, Southall Black Sisters, a feminist activists group based in the UK, argue that irrespective of contexts in which they occur, where violence is involved, cultural factors should not be taken into account if to do so would undermine women’s fundamental rights. They have described this approach as ‘mature multiculturalism’ (Patel, 2008: 14; Siddiqui, 2005; Southall Black Sisters, 2007). Though it is submitted that this approach requires redefinition of multicultural policies rather than rejection of them (Patel, 2008: 11–12; Reddy, 2008: 311), it does not allow the assessment of the personal circumstances of the defendants in their full cultural context in a criminal trial, so both males and females may benefit from it.

As argued by Reddy (2008: 319), disregarding all cultural evidence irrespective of context in which they occur cannot be a solution for the courts, however, the courts should be sensitive to the circumstances of its introduction in individual cases. In the view of this author, the reasons or arguments that the defendant puts forward should be treated seriously and sensitively for a just outcome. Here, justice demands that the legal system focus on the defendant as well as on the act, and focus on his motive as well as on his intent. This can only be achieved, if the courts are prepared to allow both cultural and non-cultural evidence to be adduced. Below, the author is going to summarize his responses to similar specifically feminist arguments and concerns relating to the availability of such cultural arguments. It will be argued that for those female and male defendants who were interviewed by the author, justice can only be provided if the defendant’s response is understood in the context of his/her culture.

In the context of honour killing, the main argument advanced against the use of the cultural defence is that it would operate to sustain male power and to undermine the rights of vulnerable groups, such as women and children (Coleman, 1996: 1095, 1166; Volpp, 1994: 94). It is argued that this violates the principle of equal protection. As seen, this argument is based on a hegemonic western discourse that views ‘non-Western cultures as almost by definition patriarchal and the women in these cultures as victims in need of protection’ (Phillips, 2007: 26).

However, concern relating to the availability of cultural defences operating to sustain and reinforce male power requires some caution. First of all, of course, the availability of a cultural defence does not entail that the defence will succeed. Second, the cultural defence does not simply equate with male interests. When it is available, both males and females may benefit from it. Thus, in the case of Kimura, a Japanese-American woman tried to drown herself, and succeeded in drowning her two children, after learning of her husband’s adultery. At her murder trial in California in 1985, it was claimed that this constituted a traditional Japanese practice of parent–child suicide (oyaka-shinju). A wife shamed by her husband’s adultery might choose suicide as the more honourable course of action, and would think it cruel to leave her children to live on without her in conditions of disgrace. She was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment.²⁰ Further, as the author’s research has established, there were some cases (see above the case of interviewee-36) where the main motive of a female defendant was to protect her honour, or the honour of her husband or family, but also where the defendant was in fear of serious violence from the victim (from further sexual harassment or rape), and the killing occurred when there was no immediate risk of violence. For these female defendants justice can only be provided if the defendant’s response is understood in the context of her culture. If the evidence is not admitted, the defendant’s motive to save her honour might suggest that she acted in a considered desire for revenge and therefore is guilty of murder. Here, the cultural defence does not work against women. Instead, it is the only way to provide justice for those female defendants who were interviewed by the author.

Another concern over the use of a cultural defence is that it may promote cultural stereotypes (Volpp, 1994: 100). What is important in a pluralistic society is to recognize that the desire to apply a uniform standard, which reflects the standard of the dominant culture, should not lead to the unfair treatment of individuals. It is possible to prevent stereotyping by providing practical guidance and training for judges, to enable them to use a non-pejorative language and take a balanced approach (Judicial Studies Board, 2004: Part 1, sections 1.1, 1.2.1, 1.2.2, Part 5, section 5.1.3). In this context when cultural evidence is introduced into courtrooms in the USA, cultural ‘experts’ are used, while in Australian trials of indigenous defendants ‘community representatives’ may be called on to testify to their cultural practices (Power, 2006: 882). However, when community representatives or leaders give evidence in the trial of honour killings, this is likely to be controversial. For reasons argued before, such witnesses may seek distance between their community and such cultural practices. A more accurate picture of the impact of the defendant’s culture on his behaviour or response can be gained through calling experts on ‘transcultural psychology’ (Volpp, 1994: 88) who can better explain the defendant’s state of mind. Transcultural psychologists or psychiatrists who come from the defendant’s culture or are immigrants themselves ‘may present a fuller, more human analysis of the defendant’ (Volpp, 1994: 89) that can help to prevent stereotypes.

The third argument over the use of a cultural defence mainly reflects practical concerns and asserts that, even if the use of cultural defence is accepted, there will be difficulties and problems related to the implementation of the policy. It will be impossible, it is said, to draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate uses of the defence. This is partly because it is hard in some cases to prove the existence of specific customs (Coleman, 1996: 1162; Golding, 2002: 150; Tunick, 2004: 406). To what extent is a practice a tradition? There are problems in testing the validity of a cultural claim put forward by the defence (Phillips, 2003: 513).

However, all available excuses in criminal law are subject to issues of proof and the risk of occasional fabrication by an unscrupulous defendant. A defendant may claim to have acted in self-defence, or under duress, where that was not actually the case. Criminal courts are used to testing such claims through evidence and cross-examination. There do not seem to be any special difficulties here associated with a cultural defence. In the opinion of this author, the question of whether the defendant’s act was influenced by his culture as he claimed, or not, is a matter best determined by the court in accordance with the testimony of expert witnesses. Therefore practical difficulties should not be used as the rationale to justify the possibility of injustice and in honour killing cases the defendant should not be silenced from telling the reasons behind his response, from his own cultural perspective.

The proper action and conclusion

The jury’s assessment of whether some act, or series of acts justify a finding of manslaughter rather than murder, is deeply influenced by the ‘cultural, moral and gender-specific norms’ (Yeo, 1996: 307) of the society in which the jury’s members grow up. However, the jurors in honour killing cases will often have different moral and cultural values than the defendant, which will prevent them from understanding the personal circumstances of the defendant. The average member of the public on an English jury may expect the defendant to be strong and to resist the pressure to kill. They may expect the defendant to seek outside help or just leave. But, the jury needs to have it explained to them that the defendant cannot simply pack his/her bag and leave. As this article explains, the defendant’s dependency on the community is clear, and where there is no help available, or the community is reluctant to intervene, this markedly increases the difficulty of leaving, makes the defendants more desperate and may well tip them over into killing.

The jury must be allowed to understand the nature of the act in the circumstances of the defendant. Therefore, the Turner rule should be relaxed. Cultural evidence provided by expert witnesses to explain the nature of the defendant’s act, and psychiatric evidence to explain the defendant’s state of mind, should be admitted for the consideration of the jury. The courts should be prepared to admit evidence about the broader social conditions experienced by the defendant. The courts should allow both cultural and non-cultural evidence to provide a fuller explanation in the proper context of the defendant’s behaviour, and provide an appropriate framework for the jury to make an informed decision.

Only this individualized consideration can provide a workable solution for the honour killing cases that the author has discussed, and it is necessary to counterbalance the stereotypical bias against such defendants. Only with this formulation is it possible to make room, within the test of reasonableness in provocation, for the fact of human diversity. This formulation would allow the jury to hear everything ‘that might conceivably help them to be more understanding of the reactions of the person in the dock before them, and allow (but not require) them to make corresponding relaxations in the applicable standard of self-control’ (Macklem and Gardner, 2001: 625). The admission of such policy and cultural information in court, as explained before, would provide a more accurate portrayal of factors influencing the defendant’s response. The jury, then, after hearing all the evidence will determine the appropriate degree of culpability, and the judge will be better informed on sentencing.

None of the above arguments should be regarded in any way as exoneration for the defendant who kills for honour. Nor should my approach be understood to mean that other people who have experienced the same pressures but did not kill, have suffered less. Moreover, none of the above arguments should be understood as saying that in such cases the killing is at least partly the victim’s fault, or that ‘s/he asked for it’. That is one of the arguments provided in order to explain the rationale of provocation on the basis of partial justification (McAuley, 1987) with which the author does not agree.²¹ It should be understood as a quest for an informed appreciation of the defendant’s circumstances to be taken into account to prevent injustice in such cases.

The English law on provocation has undergone change, prompted by the Government and guided by the Law Commission. It is unfortunate that the Commission dismissed the issue of defendants from a different ethnic and cultural background so quickly, on the basis of unconvincing research evidence. In a culturally diverse country such as the UK these problems will not disappear, and it is to be regretted that the recent process of law reform did not address the issues considered in this article more fully and sympathetically. An important opportunity to make English law fairer to its citizens has been missed.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Prof. Martin Wasik from Keele University for his valuable comments on early and the final version of this article. This article also greatly benefited from thoughtful comments of Ilia Xypolia and Ozlem Cholak.

Notes

Recep Doğan, LL.M, PhD from Keele University UK, Sessional Lecturer and Instructor at TOBB University of Economics and Technology Department of Law, Ankara Turkey, Visiting Research Fellow at Uppsala Universitet, Hugo Valentin Centrum, is a barrister and legal adviser for the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Family and Social Policies. His PhD thesis Honour Killings in Turkey: Culture, Subjectivism, and Provocation is the largest body of the research so far that reflects the voice of the defendants who committed murder in the name of honour. Dr Doğan is interested in any qualitative research in the field of violence against women and children.

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