English Yokel

More erosion of the rights of the subject

There is plenty going on in England at the moment that is really "not nice" in terms of Prayer Book prayer that the nation be "...Godly and Quietly governed". There is the whole area of ID cards that has its own site, blog and pressure group. There is the trial of the Metropolitan Police for the death of Jean Charles de Menenzes. Under the Health and Safety at Work Etc Act 1974 would you believe! Echoes here of the use of US tax legislation at least to convict Al Capone of something, because murder was too difficult a charge to have stick in those troubled times. In the same way today, the Crown Prosecution Service has bottled out of bringing more serious charges against the MP.

As an aside, it may be worth noting that the Health & Safety Act in 1974 was the first place where the absolute right to silence was lost in British law. It became an offence for anyone to refuse to answer the questions of a Factory Inspector when conducting a Section 20 interview, save for answers that might incriminate oneself or one's spouse. And after answering all his questions, the law requires the interviewee to sign a statement as to the truth of the answers (s)he has just given. If they turn out to be a pack of lies, the the whole force of Perjury law can be swung into action if they wish. So the seeds of our current distress started a long time ago, and with what appear to have been the best of intentions (at least on the surface).

But as noted by the links, others are blogging on those, and I doubt I can add anything useful to the debate.

My contribution is to take up an item on the Radio 4 programme "Law in Action" broadcast on 09 October 2007. If you are quick you can download the podcast version here. I suspect that it will be gone just before the next programme is broadcast on 16 October. The web page trailer for the programme, put out as a news story, can be found here. In passing it really does annoy me how the BBC use "news" programmes to advertise their current affairs output.

What the programme outlines is the downgrading of the legal advice available to those arrested. At present the law requires that the advice be given, or at least be assessed initially by a qualified solicitor. What they are now proposing is a telephone call centre staffed by non solicitors. In the case of London, it will be mostly staffed by ex-policemen! Immediately one begins to suspect that the advice may not be guaranteed 100% top quality. I accept that these new call centre operatives may actually have passed the same exam as required of solicitors who wish to accept this work. But there is a significant difference in that the solicitor is taking this training on top of his/her degree and further legal training. The call centre operative does not have that background. Indeed few poachers turn into successful gamekeepers, so I suspect that much of the advice from the ex-coppers will be to "shut up and take the medicine" or some variation on that theme.

Initially these changes will apply in pilot areas, then rolled out across the whole country. I had thought the idea of a pilot study was to build a review stage into it before the major deployment. Sorry, I forgot that is so "old hat". Very definitely not "new world order"! It is clear that the trial has been a success even before it has happened.

Then there is the question of which level of offence it applies to. Initially it is only for "minor" offences that the right to consult a solicitor is being withdrawn. But our government is getting bolder with its salami slicing of our rights, and it will not be too long, I fear, before more serious offences are included, leading eventually to the complete withdrawal of any right to independent legal advice at the time of arrest. All we will be allowed is a phone call to a call centre operative. Of course, they will deny it at present, but they have form!

What was one of the great evils of the time that provoked the Magna Carta, and the Bill of Rights? Arbitrary arrest and detention by the King of people he did not like for one reason or another!

It was similar abuse of the process of law that caused many in the West to consider the Soviet Union to be less than civilised, with its trumped up charges of Hooliganism, and the corresponding show trial. And if Ian Blair (Tony Blair's stooge at Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police) gets his way, we will have detention without trial getting very close to the length of time that formerly applied in South Africa. Significant, because in their mis-spent youth as members of the "Broad Left" many of the current ruling elite were most vociferous about the evils of the South African government of the day. It's not just Tory tax proposals that this New Labour government pinch, how to repress your people will do equally well.

This is yet another thing that the British people must get angry at their rulers for.

Update: Of course we can trust the police to be honest law abiding citizens, who need no further check on their honesty and uprightness in impartially administering the law, can't we?