Category: Criminal Law

Computer says ‘guilty’ – the scandals contained within the Post Office miscarriage of justice scandal

 4th June 2021

One of the successful appeal barristers in the Post Office miscarriage of justice scandal has given a powerful and important speech, which you should click on and read here.

Almost every paragraph contains devastating stuff – mistake and abuse, after mistake and abuse.

So immense a miscarriage of justice was the whole affair that it is difficult to get one’s mind around the scale of what went wrong.

I think there were three particular scandals that comprise the wider scandal – though this is not an exhaustive list.

*

One scandal is the extent of what went wrong and how long it took for anything to be put right – the number of people involved and affected, and the length of time it has taken for there to be any justice.

Here it should also be noted that had it not been for exemplary judging in the civil case by Mr Justice Fraser, there may still not be anything approximating any justice in this case.

A huge, horrible system failure of the English legal system.

*

A second scandal is just how many managers and lawyers in the Post Office knew that there were injustices – or did not care that there were injustices – but pressed on with the prosecutions and resisting the civil claims anyway.

Here the failure is not so much of a system but of individual professional decisions made by many who could and did know better.

The aggregate effect of all these bad decisions was immense – but each decision could and should have been different.

It is not good enough for those who made those bad decisions to hide behind any system failures – each should be held accountable for their individual decisions.

*

A third scandal is the most basic of all – and is more fundamental than the failure of the legal system and the failures of managers and lawyers.

This scandal is about human credulity.

This scandal is about how mere shortfalls on a computer system were capable of being sufficient evidence in-and-of-itself for postmasters and postmistresses to be criminalised.

Computer says: guilty.

Here the scandal is not about systems or decisions – but about the nature of evidence and proof itself.

A problem of general gullibility.

As the appeal barrister Paul Marshall says in his speech:

‘One of the features of these miscarriages of justice is that, in almost all cases, the only evidence against the defendant in question was a shortfall shown in the Horizon computer system.   If you remember only one thing from this talk, bear in mind that writing on a bit of paper in evidence is only marks on a piece of paper until first, someone explains what it means and, second, if it is a statement of fact, someone proves the truth of that fact.  

‘The simplest explanation for the Post Office scandal is that documents generated by the Horizon computer system were routinely treated by lawyers and judges as though statements of fact that were true, without bothering to consider how their truth should be established.  It was taken as given that what a computer record showed was correct. The shallowness of this approach is reprehensible.’

*

Even if the legal system had worked better, and even if Post Office managers and lawyers had made better decisions, there was always going to be a problem if such uncritical deference was given to computer records.

A computer should never be the one to, in effect, pronounce guilt.

*****

Thank you for reading – please now help keep this blog available for the benefit of you and others.

If you value this free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary for you and others please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

Suggested donation of any amount as a one-off, or of £5 upwards on a monthly profile.

This law and policy blog provides a daily post for you and others commenting on and contextualising topical law and policy matters.

*****

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

*****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Podcast – discussion with Alex Andreou on the upcoming Daniel Morgan report and its potential significance

31st May 2021

In this podcast released today (but recorded last Friday) I discuss with Alex Andreou the significance of the upcoming Daniel Morgan report – and also the recent attempts by the home office into bullying the independent panel.

Andreou is a superb podcast host, combining a formidable intellect with a luxurious, melodious voice (in contrast to my high-pitched Brummie Wednesday Addams) – and we hope that this will be a useful primer in the run-up to the publication of the report expected in mid-June 2021.

You can hear it on one of the links here.

*

Some early reviews:

https://twitter.com/JonathanMolesUK/status/1399319292362035201

 

Did the Home Office blink? – the significance of today’s announcement of a date for the Daniel Morgan report

28th May 2021

Today came the news that the publication of the report on the Daniel Morgan independent panel should be on 15 June 2021.

This is the report into the 1987 death of Daniel Morgan, the collapse of the many subsequent investigations and prosecutions, and the existence of (and the relevance of) any corrupt relationships between the police, the private investigation industry and the press.

The statement of the panel is here and should be read in full. 

This is, of course, welcome news.

It ends the stand-off between the panel and the home office – and, on balance, the home office has given way more than the panel.

The late intervention of the home office – to demand a last-minute ‘review’ of the report – is now unlikely to frustrate the publication of the report.

Delay and blocking

This statement means that, unless something happens to prevent it, there is now a fixed, imminent date for publication.

This should prevent the report being delayed indefinitely by the home office sitting on it during this (supposed) review.

If the objective of the home office was to provide room for delay (or even prevent) the publication of the report, then that objective looks like it has been defeated.

There is a little wriggle-room for potential further delay – but not as much as if there was no date set at all.

Redactions

The statement also deals with the issue of any home office redactions.

Any redactions that the home office insist upon will be identifiable – and so, it would seem, contestable in court.

Each redaction would be an action by the home secretary that could – at law – be looked at by the high court for its reasonableness and relevance.

Any redaction would thereby not necessarily be the end of the matter – but just the prelude for litigation.

The redactions cannot just be silently made, with no one to know.

Again this is a set-back if the objective of the home office was to have room to make such silent redactions.

Forewarnings and leaks

If, however, the home office had as its objective that it would be forewarned of the content of the report, this objective has been achieved.

This means that if – and it is only an ‘if’ – there is anything politically significant in the report then the home office will not have a shock and so will not be bounced.

It also means there is the possibility of leaks from the home office – perhaps to the media – in the days before 15 June 2021.

This is notwithstanding the controlled conditions for the review of the report – which will remind those with longer memories of Robin Cook and the Scott report.

Making sense of the Home Office intervention

As this blog has already averred, there appears to be no good reason for the late home office intervention.

The purported reasons do not add up – and they appear to be improvised and cynical.

As I set out in detail here, the choice of ‘national security’ and ‘the human rights act’ as grounds appear to have been for providing the maximum litigation cover for any home office delay, and not because of any genuine concerns.

I am not a conspiracy theorist by inclination – conspiracies do, of course exist, but usually to hide cock-ups, as only then will a number of people have the motivation and focus to act in concert.

As such I do not think there is any conspiracy between the home secretary and others to try and block or delay or gut the report.

The home secretary may well be (as a lawyer would say) on a frolic of her own in all this, without contact with anyone else with an interest.

It may well be that the home secretary simply did not like the idea of something being published by an independent panel beyond her control or involvement.

But whatever the true motive for the home office’s late bullying intervention, the statement today means that it is more likely than not that we will see the report published in two weeks, and possibly with few if any redactions.

The panel and its lawyers should be commended for facing off this illiberal and misconceived intervention.

*****

Hello there.  Thank you for reading – now help keep this blog available for you and others.

If you value this free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary for you and others please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

Suggested donation of any amount as a one-off, or of £5 upwards on a monthly profile.

This law and policy blog provides a daily post for you and others commenting on and contextualising topical law and policy matters.

*****

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

*****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

The cynical reason why the Home Office may be invoking ‘National Security’ and the “Human Rights Act’ so as to delay publishing the Independent Panel Report on Daniel Morgan

27th May 2021

There is a stand-off between the home office and the Daniel Morgan independent panel over publication of the panel’s report.

From the perspective of the Morgan family this is unfortunate – and even heart-breaking.

It is a horrible situation.

*

The report will be important – whatever its content – for three reasons.

First: it will be nearest we get to a definitive account of the circumstances of the 1987 death of Daniel Morgan, the private investigator murdered in south London.

Second: it will also set out, as far as possible, how and why investigations and prosecutions kept failing, again and again – and the relevance (if any) of the relationships (corrupt or otherwise) between the metropolitan police, the press and the private investigation industry in explaining those failed investigations and prosecutions.

And third: it will be the nearest we get in practice to ‘Leveson 2’ – the general inquiry into the relationships between the metropolitan police, the press and the private investigation industry, an inquiry which has now been cancelled by the current government.

So far, the coverage of hacking and the other (so-called) ‘dark arts’ have given a lop-sided view of what happened, focusing on the press and newsroom culture – but the press was the customer in the wrongful trade in personal information at the relevant times – the ‘demand-side’.

What is still obscure is the ‘supply-side’ of what happened – especially the role of the police and the private investigators.

Even without the particular circumstances of the death of Daniel Morgan and its aftermath, it all would be an extremely complicated world to understand.

So it is no surprise that panel has spent since 2013 putting this report together.

And now the report is ready to be published.

*

But.

The report has not been published.

The home office is insisting that they review the report before publication and they will not commit to a date for publication.

Under the terms of reference for the panel it is envisaged that the home secretary arrange for the report to be placed before parliament – and that would be the means by which the report would then be published and thereby enter the public domain.

The understanding is (though I am aware of different opinions) is that by placing the report before parliament that it would thereby acquire absolute privilege – which means that nobody can be sued for defamation in respect of the content of the report.

Whether or not this legal analysis is correct, it was certainly envisaged that his would be the procedure and – regardless of the legalities – it is certainly the fitting way for such an important report to be dealt with.

Not many reports are solemnly placed before the parliament by the home secretary.

And although some say the report should just be leaked, this is one report that – perhaps more than any other – should be published ‘by the book’ – as it is ultimately about the rule of law itself.

*

What is the reason for the current stand-off?

We appear not to have the true reason – but we do know this because the reasons so far given do not make sense.

According to one blogpost – which I cannot vouch for as I did not write it and I have not seen the underlying evidence for its assertions – there has been a succession of home office excuses for the delay.

Whether or not there have been earlier home office excuses for the delay, the current reasons are that the home secretary needs time to review the report because of the home secretary’s responsibilities in respect of national security and under the human rights act.

Balderdash.

Codswallop.

Flapdoodle.

Utter twaddle.

These cannot be serious grounds for the following reasons.

First, the home office do not yet have a copy of the report and so cannot know in advance whether a report into the circumstances and aftermath of a murder in a south London carpark in 1987 raises any current national security and under the human rights act issues in 2021.

Second, the report has already been vetted by the metropolitan police legal department who would have been able to identify any such issues – and indeed the home secretary would presumably have to rely on the metropolitan police for this supposed review, given the report deals with police operational issues.

And third, the panel has itself ensured that it has had experienced and extensive legal advice – and have followed the usual ‘Maxwellisation’ process of ensuring what is to be published would be legally sound.

Indeed, the terms of reference envisaged that the emerging findings of the inquiry and the final report could be released directly and freely to the Morgan family, and this provision would not make sense if there was a prior formal home office review stage.

The excuses of of national security and under the human rights act are improvised and artificial excuses to justify delay – and one suspects that there is not a single person inside or outside the home office who has a sincere belief in these excuses.

*

But why these two particular excuses?

At first, it seemed a puzzle.

My best charitable guess was perhaps the home office simply did not want to set a precedent for immediately publishing reports that were outside the scope of the inquiries act.

Yet that did not explain why these two particular excuses were selected.

And then it became obvious.

This is all about litigation – and about providing cover for litigation risk.

National security is one issue that the courts will invariably defer (with nods) to the home office – and if the home secretary makes an assessment then even the current president of the supreme court will say this has to be accorded ‘respect’.

And the human rights act point, a clever one, is that under article 2 of the European convention there is a ‘right to life’ which again, once invoked, means that the courts are unlikely to conduct any balancing exercise.

The combination of these two grounds mean that the home office would be able to resist any judicial review of their delay – for government lawyers would just need to say national security and the human rights act, and a court would be unlikely to intervene.

And – and this is crucial – it also works the other way round: for if the panel threatened to publish the report itself then the home office could use the same two grounds for obtaining an injunction against publication.

Indeed, one suspects that the home office lawyers are currently insisting on formal undertakings from the panel that the panel will not publish the report directly.

*

If my reasoning here is correct – and I cannot think of any other plausible explanation for why the home office has invoked national security and the human rights act – then the home office and its lawyers are engaged in a cynical exercise of making the delay to be litigation-proof.

Such gaming of the judicial process is not necessarily an abuse of process – indeed civil lawyers often use such tactics and even have a big white book packed with ways by which parties can win cases other than on the actual merits of the case.

But if such tactics are legally permissible that does not make them normatively acceptable.

And in these circumstances, such tactics are nothing other than disgusting. 

There is no good reason for this delay – and the brother of Daniel Morgan should not have had to tweet this.

The independent panel report should be published without any further delay.

*****

Hello there.  Thank you for reading – now help keep this blog available for you and others.

If you value this free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary for you and others please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

Suggested donation of any amount as a one-off, or of £5 upwards on a monthly profile.

This law and policy blog provides a daily post for you and others commenting on and contextualising topical law and policy matters.

*****

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

*****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Why ‘how to regulate’ guides are invariably nice and colourful but impractical

25th May 2021

It would be unfair to name the particular public body responsible but a new guide to regulation has just been published.

The guide is lovely to look at.

Pages and pages of colourful graphics, with boxes and arrows.

A well-meaning sequence of platitudinous or vague statements are made which together are to be taken as a guide to good regulation.

The guide is pretty and clever and earnest.

And the guide seems completely useless.

One suspects no better regulation will be made because of it, nor any better regulatory decision.

*

The problem is not that, on its own terms, it is wrong.

On its own terms, the guide is quite wonderful.

Like a self-contained and lovingly illustrated code in some invented language like Dwarvish or Klingon or Dothraki.

The obscure illuminated manuscripts of our public policy age.

But the guide – and many guides like it – may not correspond to reality.

*

The essence of regulation is practical, not theoretical.

The basic question is: what behaviour or outcome would happen (or not happen) but for the regulatory measure?

How will things actually be different (or the same) because of the intervention (or lack of intervention)?

And will those things really be more desirable than otherwise would be the case?

If the regulatory measure – either a rule or a decision – does not in practice affect behaviours or outcomes as desired, then it may be many things but it fails as a regulatory measure.

So: the best guide to regulation is work backwards from what is happening (or otherwise would happen) and see how that behaviour or outcome can be made to be different (or forced to stay the same) in a way desired.

*

The problem with flowchart-based – and also with checklist-based – regulation is that it makes the regulator feel that something is being done.

Like the old joke about the driver who always looks in the rear-view mirror before pulling out – it does not matter what is coming, as long as they have looked in the rear-view mirror they can proceed to pull out.

In so many fields of human activity – from drug-taking to sex work to public health rules for coronavirus and electronic surveillance and public procurement (just to take a few public policy bug bears) – there is a belief that there must be regulations, as something must be done.

The problem with colourful guides on ‘how to regulate’ the process takes priority over practical effect and implementation.

There should perhaps be a new regulator to prevent flowchart-based regulation.

Perhaps it can be called OffChart.

*****

You can subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

*****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Why the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel legally can and should disclose the full report to the Morgan family at the same time as to the Home Office

24th May 2021

Today in parliament there was a short debate on the delays in the report in respect of the murder of Daniel Morgan, why there were successive collapses of investigations and prosecutions, and the significance of potential corrupt relationships between the press, the police and private investigation industry.

The link for watching the debate is here – and it is worth watching in full.

You will rarely see a junior minister so obviously unconvinced by their own brief – and there is an apparent contrast between her conciliatory manner and the content of what she had to read out.

(It is not unusual for junior ministers to stand in for cabinet ministers for these urgent debates – though it would have been appropriate for the home secretary to have been there.)

You get the impression that nobody – inside or outside of government – is actually convinced of the ‘national security’ and ‘human rights act’ points being taken to justify the home office’s position.

Indeed, both points seem to be ‘lines to take’ – formulated by some clever central government lawyer – as giving wriggle-room to the home office.

But neither contention adds up.

The panel report is not under the Inquiries Act 2005 – and so the exceptions under section 25 do not apply.

The most charitable explanation I can can conceive is that the government wants to avoid creating a precedent for other non-2005 Act reports being free from the same exceptions.

There are more plausible, less charitable explanations.

*

The reason why the report being presented to parliament is legally important (as well as constitutionally appropriate) is that it will give the report absolute privilege in respect of defamation when it is published to the general public.

And although a publication of the report directly to the public by the panel without going through the home secretary and parliament would be an exciting event – and no more than the home secretary deserves – it would not be legally prudent. 

But it is worth looking at the terms of reference carefully on this point – as there may be another way forward in the face of home office obstinacy.

*

The terms of reference are here – and they should be looked at in full.

Paragraph 6 indeed provides:

‘The Independent Panel will present its final Report to the Home Secretary who will make arrangements for its publication to Parliament.’

But one sentence in the following paragraph 7 is also interesting:

‘In the meanwhile, it is also envisaged that the Panel will brief the family incrementally, both on the progress of its work and on its emerging findings.’

And so is also paragraph 4(c):

‘…the Independent Panel will…brief members of the family through a final report which would be made available first to the family and then to the public at large’.

In other words: it was envisaged in the terms of reference that, although publication to the world was to be done through the home secretary and parliament, it was open to the panel to share its findings and indeed the final report directly with the family.

(Note the ‘will’ in 4(c).)

I do not know if the panel has shared the findings and the final report with the Morgan family – but not only is there nothing in the terms of reference to prevent the panel from doing this, the terms of reference expressly envisage this being done.

And there would be no greater check on any untoward redactions by the home office than the Morgan family having the original, unredacted report before them.

 

*****

Hello there.  Thank you for reading – now help keep this blog available for you and others.

If you value this free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary for you and others please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

Suggested donation of any amount as a one-off, or of £5 upwards on a monthly profile.

This law and policy blog provides a daily post for you and others commenting on and contextualising topical law and policy matters.

*****

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

*****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

 

No Home Secretary should be using police raids as photo ops wearing a quasi-police uniform

21st May 2021

Under section 1 of the Public Order Act 1936 it is an offence to wear political uniforms.

And section 90 of the Police Act 1990 provides that it is an offence to impersonate a police officer.

But politicians do like dressing up.

Here is a Labour politician – an elected police and crime commissioner in 2017.

His Conservative political opponents were scathing:

But partisanship is the foe of consistency, and so we now have a Conservative politician dressed in quasi-police kit:

The remarkable thing is that the Conservative politician in question is the actual Home Secretary.

We have the Home Secretary dressing up in a quasi-police uniform and going on operations where coercive force is used.

When I re-tweeted a gloss on this significant picture yesterday, I was told-off because the original tweet had got the nature of the police operation wrong:

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1395657008032931840

The nature of the offence, and of the police operation, is irrelevant.

The Home Secretary could be attending the arrest of the most notorious criminal in the land, and it would not make a difference.

There is something wrong – and crass – about Home Secretaries using such operations as photo opportunities.

And there is something sinister about doing it in a quasi-police uniform.

Not even Churchill did that over a hundred years ago as a similarly opportunistic Home Secretary (and he was more entitled to wear a uniform, as a former soldier):

(And even John Terry had some claim to be able to wear his Chelsea kit in that famous 2012 incident.)

*

Exploiting – indeed weaponising – police operations for political purposes is unwise and illiberal – whether the politician is Conservative or Labour or even Winston Churchill.)

It points to the misuse and abuse of law and law enforcement – that certain things are being done not for the straight purposes of justice and due process.

It also speaks to the increasing authoritarianism in our political culture.

There is, of course, a good reason why impersonating a police officer is banned.

And there is a very good reason why in 1936 – of all years, if you think about it – the wearing of uniforms for political purposes was banned.

Nationalistic populist authoritarianism is something to be opposed, not encouraged.

And that, at least, was something Winston Churchill (despite his many manifest faults) got more right than his current day Conservative successors.

*****

Hello there.  Thank you for reading – now help keep this blog available for you and others.

If you value this free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary for you and others please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

Suggested donation of any amount as a one-off, or of £5 upwards on a monthly profile.

This law and policy blog provides a daily post for you and others commenting on and contextualising topical law and policy matters.

*****

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

*****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

 

 

The Daniel Morgan independent panel in effect tell the Home Secretary: ‘you have no authority here Priti Patel, no authority at all’

20th May 2021

Yesterday’s post was about the home secretary making an extraordinary intervention that would delay the long-awaited publication of report of the independent panel on the death of Daniel Morgan.

And then came further news that the panel were refusing to give the report to the home secretary:

This is a splendid and spirited response from the panel to what is an unconvincing attempt by the home secretary to intervene.

And alluding to that infamous parish council meeting, one wag caught it perfectly:

(Though, of course, in that other instance, the recipient of that comment was the one in the right, as this blog then explained.)

*

The move by the home secretary may not only fail – it may be counter-productive.

Last week those who followed the Daniel Morgan case were wondering whether the impending publication of the independent panel report would get any press or public attention.

And then our clumsy bullying Home Secretary sought to clumsily bully the independent panel.

Well.

 

Such PR is priceless.Without her intervention, the report may have generated little interest beyond those who had an interest anyway.

Now there is far more interest.

And as someone was quoted in the news report:

“There are no national security issues involved. There are national embarrassment issues.”

If this is correct (and I have no idea) then, thanks to the home secretary, more people will now be aware of this.

Before attempting to intervene, the home secretary should have read the terms of reference of the independent panel – read them, and understood them.

**

(With apologies to the great Jackie Weaver)

*****

Hello there.  Thank you for reading – now help keep this blog available for you and others.

If you value this free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary for you and others please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

Suggested donation of any amount as a one-off, or of £5 upwards on a monthly profile.

This law and policy blog provides a daily post for you and others commenting on and contextualising topical law and policy matters.

*****

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

*****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated.

Comments will not be published if irksome.

 

The extraordinary intervention of Priti Patel in delaying publication of the Daniel Morgan report

19th May 2021

This is not a conspiracy theory blog.

Conspiracies do, of course, exist – often to cover up cock-ups, for that is usually the only time when any given group of people have the focus and motivation to act in concert.

But a conspiracy is rarely the first notion that comes to my mind to explain any odd state of affairs.

And so, in respect of the 1987 murder of Daniel Morgan, I do not know why he was killed and who killed him.

This is just not safe legal-libel speak: I genuinely have no idea, and I offer no theory.

But what is odd about this murder was the aftermath: a remarkable succession of failed investigations and prosecutions.

Here, again, there may be explanations short of a conspiracy.

Court cases and so on fail all the time, and for various reasons.

And even if those reasons point to systemic failures, often those system failures are not conspiracies but just, well, system failures.

But.

The succession of failed investigations and prosecutions in the case of Daniel Morgan also indicate that there may be concerted wrongful conduct.

And nobody who knows anything about the metropolitan police and their relationship with the tabloid media at the relevant time would be surprised if there had been undue pressure and corruption.

Still: we do not know for certain.

And this is why an independent panel inquiry was set up in 2013 to, as far as possible, get to the bottom of what happened and what, if anything, went wrong.

(My 2012 piece calling for a formal inquiry is here.)

*

The panel spent eight years putting together a detailed report.

The eight year period indicates the complexity and perhaps the seriousness of the matters being investigated.

And this long-awaited report was about to be published…

…when in an extraordinary intervention Priti Patel, the home secretary, has delayed its publication.

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1394982007093043201

 

We even have the remarkable sight of Patel relying on the Human Rights Act as part of the excuse for the delay.

As the panel has pointed out – in an impressively robust statement (which you should read) – there is no good reason for this intervention.

None of the supposed reasons add up, and it appears to me that the home secretary’s stated reasons are mere pretexts.

This is an extraordinary intervention by a politician in an independent inquiry.

And it also may be counter-productive – as it is drawing attention to a report that – even if it were critical – may have had little press or public attention.

After all – as I aver above – few would be surprised that bad things were happening at the time with the police and the media.

So, even if there is something in there which Patel, for political reasons, did not want in the public domain, her delay may be bringing attention to a thing others may have preferred were left not emphasised.

Some commenters believe that the report will be an exposure of the corrupt relationships between the media and the police of the time.

I have no idea.

But many will be even more interested in the report now after Patel’s extraordinary and perhaps clumsy intervention.

And we should hope that the report when published finally brings some justice for the family of Daniel Morgan who have campaigned tirelessly since his death for the truth to be revealed.

*****

Hello there. 

If you value this free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary for you and others please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

Suggested donation of any amount as a one-off, or of £5 upwards on a monthly profile.

This law and policy blog provides a daily post for you and others commenting on and contextualising topical law and policy matters.

*****

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

*****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated.

Comments will not be published if irksome.

 

This illiberal Queen’s Speech is the next step for authoritarian populism after Brexit

11th May 2021

Well, that was quite the Queen’s Speech.

A legislative programme geared to make a certain sort of person grin and clap and cheer about ‘owning the libs’.

But it is not just about mere superficialities – it is in substance a multi-pronged attack our liberties.

The prime minister is not only taking back control of when there will be general elections, the government is making it harder for people to vote.

The government is also making it harder for government decisions to be challenged in court, and it is making it harder for anyone to protest about any of this.

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1392125915543523330

*

Of course: this is not a surprise.

Five years ago, senior members of the governing party affected to want to give effect to the ‘will of the people’.

But, as is often the case with authoritarian populists, the supposed mandate of the people was only ever a convenient rhetorical device for ever-greater central control.

And the sorry state of our politics means that the government will probably get away with this.

There may be opposition in the house of lords – and some measures may be open to legal challenge.

Yet, even with the few remaining checks and balances in out constitutional arrangements – this is what the government does as the next step after ‘taking back control’.

The impression is that Brexit was not about liberation, but about creating a political culture where the opposite of liberation – imposed authority – became more entrenched.

Our post-Brexit polity is now looking very dismal and depressing indeed.

*****

If you value this free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

Suggested donation of any amount as a one-off, or of £4.50 upwards on a monthly profile.

This law and policy blog provides a daily post commenting on and contextualising topical law and policy matters – each post is usually published at about 9.30am UK time – though some special posts are published later.

*****

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

*****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated.

Comments will not be published if irksome.