Senior City partners have come out strongly against proposals for banking reform published yesterday (19 June) by the commission tasked with restoring confidence in the industry in the wake of the Libor scandal.

The parliamentary commission's report on banking standards, which includes proposals to jail bankers who engage in "reckless misconduct", has been met with strong criticism from senior lawyers, who describe aspects of the report as 'unworkable', 'naive' and 'monstrous'.

Other recommendations in the report – entitled 'Changing banking for good' – include extending the role of regulators to allow them to hold back bankers' bonuses, an overhaul of internal governance at banks, and a push to make the commercial banking sector more competitive and diverse.

Top banking litigation lawyers have condemned the suggestion that senior bankers should be jailed for mismanagement, with one describing the report's accusations of bankers' culpability in the financial crash as "monstrous".

"The politicians are responding to what they take as a public outcry; they don't need to worry so much on whether somebody has said there is a huge difference between personal responsibility and personal culpability," said one top-ranked banking partner, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"There are some truly monstrous things in this report, such as the accusations around 'deliberately poor understanding' of their accountability. That is an extraordinary thing to say."

Another banking litigation head at a top City law firm said the proposals lacked informed legal judgement, and accused ministers of playing to the public gallery.

"There has been a sustained period of media hysteria and a resulting political reaction to this hysteria and now, a great many uninformed decisions," he said. "It is very easy to blame an amorphous group like 'bankers' and bring in swingeing measures like prison terms.

"The report is both unworkable and naive and fails to recognise either the causes of the financial crisis, and the huge source of wealth the financial sector provides to the UK."

Mayer Brown disputes partner Alastair Graham commented: "Just as there will be significant hurdles to convicting individuals in relation to a Bribery Act offence, so it seems extraordinarily difficult to imagine that an offence of reckless misconduct in the management of a bank will be successful. As a criminal offence it will have to be proved beyond all reasonable doubt. The public mood is one of punishment and the commission clearly feels some sanction or threat is appropriate to moderate behaviour."

Dentons financial disputes partner Richard Caird added that the tightening and better implementation of regulation was preferable to threats of jail terms. "Nobody wants another banking crisis like we saw five years ago; the question is how you avoid it, and I don't think threatening people with prison is the answer."