I’m glad Lord Goldsmith spoke up about this in an interview on Sky News yesterday. I’m not so much interested in his defence of the decision to drop the investigation, but in the point of principle he raises (in the video clip I’ve linked to: I don’t think the written report does justice to it). His point was that the Administrative Court’s ruling last week raises serious questions about the traditional duty of a prosecutor to weigh whether any prosecution is in the public interest or not. Fair enough, an unreasonable decision will be unlawful; but to limit in principle the circumstances in which discontinuance will be unlawful potentially conflicts with the traditional position – care needs to be taken.

His concern is essentially the same as my second qualm about the ruling; I also alluded to it in my comment about this at Iain Dale’s Diary.

2008-04-14T17:49:00+00:00Tags: , , , |