An article from The Spectator suggests that the government’s plans to allow anonymous witnesses might be at variance with article 6 (3d) of the European Convention on Human Rights, quoted by Wikipedia thus:
Article 6 – Right to a fair trial…
3. Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:…
d. to examine or [...]
Archive for June, 2008
Witness anonymity: the empire strikes back
Posted in law, tagged anonymity, witness on 30 June, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Quote of the day
Posted in Quotes, tagged motto on 29 June, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Eins andern knecht soll niemand seyn,
Der für sich bleyben kann alleyn.
‘Let no man belong to another, who can belong to himself.’
[Motto of 'Paracelsus' (Philip Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, 1493-1541); in Ball, P.: The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the world of Renaissance magic and science, ISBN 0434011347]
Whose side are the police on? Apparently their own
Posted in Reaction, tagged yoblets on 29 June, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I promised the doctors I would do something about my stress levels, so really I should not be reading stories like this, about which Tom Paine says:
I once made a citizen’s arrest myself, but I would never do so again… I am white, male and middle class. I am already guilty in the eyes of [...]
…Harry, England and Saint George
Posted in Reaction, tagged little Hitlers on 29 June, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In the Devil’s Kitchen there is mention of an article in the Brussels Journal about the police harassing the English Democrat party, whose logo is based on the flag of St. George, for displaying the flag of St. George, saying that their doing so breached a by-law.
The church in Henley, where this happened, was also [...]
Nightjack on anonymity
Posted in law, tagged Add new tag, anonymity, witness on 28 June, 2008 | 3 Comments »
I am greatly encouraged by the receipt of a comment from Nightjack, who is one of the few Police bloggers whose discourse is reliably both comprehensible and diverse.
If nothing else, it does mean that someone is reading this other than people directed to it, more or less accidentally, by Google.
We do not really agree about [...]
A quiet news day
Posted in Admin on 28 June, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The statistical thing on WordPress tells me that nobody is reading this blog at all now, so I can say what I damn well like without any fear of contradiction.
Lots of people read the blog a few days ago, most of them apparently attracted by my correctly-spelled use of the term ‘metal-augmented charge’.
One [...]
Swift, QC on witness anonymity
Posted in Reaction, tagged anonymity on 27 June, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Malcolm Swift, QC was the barrister who acted for Iain Davis, whose acquittal prompted the government to propose altering the law to allow prosecution (but not, curiously, defence) witnesses to remain anonymous.
He wrote an article for Times Online about the issue, which sums it up rather well.
I have a theory about this.
If one were to [...]
Angering the gods
Posted in Uncategorized on 27 June, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I happen to know someone who lives in Glastonbury.
She tells me that the annual event (to which locals refer, I gather, as ‘the Pilton pop festival’, because it is held some seven miles from Glastonbury and is not to be confused with the Glastonbury Festival, an arts event of considerably greater significance to the regiment [...]
MiniLuv Commissar on child-rearing
Posted in Rants, tagged bitter on 27 June, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
From the Times Online, an article about how the government proposes to deal with ‘precriminals’:
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, called for a huge expansion of state intervention in family life as a way of preventing young people from problem families drifting into antisocial behaviour and crime….“It is part of the role of government not [...]
