I forgot to mention that one person who’ll have found a nugget of comfort in Ruth Turner’s arrest is the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith. Not in the fact of her arrest; but in the fact that she was Ray Ban outlet arrested on suspicion of offences under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (perhaps the relevant offence is section 148). Under neither of those does a charge need his consent to proceed.
I’m pleased to see that
I must mention Blunkett, too – one of the most arrogant and over-mighty ministers ever – I’ve never heard him criticise police action for being too harsh – until now. Funny that he chooses to complain about action that’s not harsh at all, but normal. But affects his political friends.
It might well have been important, given that they now clearly suspect evidence may have been destroyed to cover up criminality, to interview Ruth Turner without warning. That in itself justifies a “dawn raid”, which the police do because http://www.raybani.com/ they’re confident they’ll find the person at home at that time. God knows what would have happened if the police had done the really theatrical thing, and arrested her at 10 Downing Street, which, unless they were prepared to risk tipping her off, or through he rtipping other suspects off, was the only sensible alternative.
The fact is, none of these people know what evidence the police have, and none of them is in a position to criticise the police at all, for being “theatrical” or for any other reason. They should shut up.
He apparently complained about the fact that the Court of Appeal, in its latest judgment, had ruled “without discussion” that some of the control orders imposed on terrorist suspects under recent legislation http://www.raybani.com/ were in breach of the article 5 Convention right. He was upset that Law Lords refuse to discuss with ministers how to deal with terrorist suspects, saying this is not just “incredible”, but “disgraceful”. He thinks they should give ministers better guidance.
He’s reported as saying this left him as Home Secretary in a difficult position:
“What I strongly dislike is flailing around in a cloud of views of senior lawyers with different opinions and the difficulty of getting to a firmness of accuracy in that situation.”
I have not the slightest sympathy or respect for this view; in fact, I think it’s an idiotic outburst. Do you really have to be this dim to be Home Secretary? What does he think a judge’s job is?
If any Law Lord were to debate with ministers publicly about this, he or she would instantly be accused , by ministers, of making inappropriately political remarks, and if a case came before him or her relating to that subject, ministers would complain of bias. Or, if the judge has said thing supportive of government policy, then the terrorist suspects and their lawyers on the other side would complain. The judge’s task, of determining specific disputes impartially and being seen to do so, would be compromised.
So is Clarke suggesting this “discussion” and “guidance” should be private? In that case, unelected judges would, without any transparency or Ray Ban outlet accountability have a secret yet highly influential role in legislation, and cases they decided subsequently relating to that legislation would be prejudiced, too.
The fact is, both Clarke’s whingeing and his proposals are sheer nonsense. Judges are not there to give legal advice to any party who may come before the courts; they are there to determine disputes impartially, and must stick to that.
As for Clarke’s “flailing around”, my heart bleeds not a bit. Doesn’t he realise that every business and every citizen involved in any legal dispute must “flail around” in the same way he did? As Home Secretary, he has available to him legal advice from the Home Office’s own lawyers, standing Treasury Counsel, any independent barrister he wanted to instruct, and, if he was in any need of achieving “firmness of accuracy”, the Attorney General, who, while unable (like any lawyer) to give a definitive ruling in the sense of predicting with absolute certainty the judgment of the courts, would give him clear and authoritative legal advice. Doesn’t he realise this? He flailed around much less than any other litigant does.
And if he’s trying to imply that he put forward the control order legislation without realising the legal risks, or appreciating that control orders requiring a suspect to stay at home for 18 hours a day might be held in breach of article 5 – then I simply don’t believe him. I think his lawyers must have told him of those risks repeatedly – that’s their job – and that he and the government of which Occhiali Da sole Ray Ban outlet he was a member took those risks knowingly. I don’t criticise them for that; but I do criticise him for blaming judges when the policy runs into forseeable difficulties.
Policy is made by the executive; law, by Parliament. Unelected judges have no role in this at all, nor should they. And I think it’s sad when a former minister is so frustrated by his own inability to develop sustainable public policy that he wants to give up, and hand the responsibility over to judges.
It also shows he’s unfit for high office in the future.
I’m looking forward to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade’s judicial review of the decision of Attorney General, the SFO and the Prime Minister to discontinue the investigation into bribery in BAe’s Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia. I commented on the decision originally here. On the web you can also find CAAT’s press release and their solicitors’ letter from before Christmas, threatening legal action.
I think their challenge faces real difficulties, though. They rely on article 5 of the OECD Convention on http://www.gooakley.com/ combating bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions (a fair mouthful, that one), which requires that an investigation of bribery of a foreign official “shall not be influenced by considerations of… the potential effect on relations with another State”.
They say this has been breached because the Attorney mentioned in his statement in the House of Lords the risk of damage to intelligence and diplomatic cooperation with the Saudis. Well, yes – so he did. But he also made clear that he did not take account of the effect on relations with Saudi Arabia. So I think his argument, that it is national security which motivated his decision, not international relations, is probably sustainable. I expect the government to win this case.
In any event of course what he said in the Lords is subject to the Bill of Rights 1689, under which no Ray Ban outlet proceedings in Parliament may be questioned in any place outside Parliament – which includes the courts. So the CAAT is on dodgy ground even to complain about the Attorney’s statement.
What utter, utter nonsense. It’s true that everyone has the article 8 Convention right to have their private life respected, and that in some Ray Ban outlet circumstances widely publishing a picture of someone might be a breach of that right. For instance, if the government were to insert hidden cameras in hotel bedrooms and publish on the web photographs of honeymoon-style activity. Clearly private life, and a definite lack of respect.
But publishing fugitive prisoners’ photos in circumstances like these is clearly justified in terms of the article 8 right, for the purpose of preventing crime, to protect public safety and to protect the rights and freedoms of others. There really is no human rights issue. But there would be if the prisoners were dangerous – in a case like that, a stupid refusal to issue photos for daft, imaginary human rights reasons might well risk a real breach of the police’s duty under the article 2 Convention right to do what it can to secure our right to life.
The government was right in its review of the http://www.gooakley.com/ Human Rights Act, over the summer (downloadable here): the Act is being blamed, ridiculously, for all kinds of stupidities which it has nothing whatever to do with. I actually suspect the police of conniving in this: no doubt many police officers hate the Act for reasons both daft (they imagine it stops them doing things when it doesn’t) and rational (it does stop them doing some things they’d like to do) and I think some police officers enjoy sowing confusion about it and bringing it into disrepute.
Two interesting papers from
I think it’s depressing that the German Presidency intends to try to revive this misconceived, failed project. Politicians across Europe have http://www.gooakley.com/ failed utterly to understand the nature of the problem they face: EU citizens have very little faith in Europe’s institutions, and for a mix of good, bad and contradictory reasons they do not trust elite projects to reform them, either.
In the interests of the European project, I wish governments and Brussels would shut up about this, completely – a period of silence would be welcome.
Yesterday it was reported that a team at Imperial College, London have developed a new, cheap version of interferon to treat hepatitis C, by altering its molecular structure. Instead of coating the interferon with sugar, they can insert sugar within the molecule, ensuring a similar therapeutic effect from a different physical structure.
It seems this may get round http://www.gooakley.com/ Roche’s patent for interferon. But the BBC quoted the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry as saying that should this prove to be a ‘new’ medicine, trials would need to be undergone before the drug could be marketed.
But I’m not sure that’s right.
Under article 10 of the relevant EC Directive, 2001/83 (download the consolidated version as a PDF file here), toxicological tests and clinical trials do not have to be undertaken for the relevant licensing authority (in the UK, the MHRA) in relation to a drug which is “essentially similar” to one that’s already been on the market for six or ten years (depending on which Member State’s authorities are being asked for a licence). And the MHRA’s guidance makes clear two products are essentially similar if they have the same Occhiali Da sole Ray Ban outlet active ingredient in the same amount; if they have the same pharmceutical form; and if they are bioequivalent – in other words, are taken up by the body at the same rate and in the same way.
It sounds to me from the reports that this new molecular formulation of interferon has almost been designed to meet this test. If Roche have been marketing the existing version somewhere in Europe for six years, it may be possible for Imperial and its partners to piggy back on Roche’s data to get a licence in that member state, then have that licence recognised throughout Europe and market the new product across the EC.
This could be a major test for the existing European legislation on medicines licensing.
It is not a right to stop them coming here, or, as she says, to treat them differently from other EU citizens in other respects.
Most of the media’s emphasis will be on the national measures the UK is entitled to take restricting the access of Bulgarians and Romanians to its labour market. Annexes VI and VII of the http://www.gooakley.com/ Act concerning the conditions of accession allow such measures to be taken for five years. An important point is that it is only access to the labour market which can be transitionally restricted: there is no restriction on the right of Romanians and Bulgarians to come to the UK.
Incidentally, it might also be of interest to some people here that Romania and Bulgaria are entitled to restrict for the same five-year period British and other EU citizens’ ability to buy second homes in their territory.
What interests me more, however, is how their accession affects the balance of power in the Council of Ministers – still by far the most powerful institution in the EU. You can see the voting strengths of the now 27 Member States here.
Romania, with 14 votes, will be the 7th most powerful member, behind only the “big six” (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland). But it’ll only half roughly half the votes of Poland so it’s not a new “big”, but the biggest of the “smalls”, with more Ray Ban outlet votes than Holland, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Finland or Belgium. And almost as many as all three Baltic states combined.
Bulgaria will have 10 votes – on a par with Sweden and Austria, and more powerful than Ireland or Denmark.
So these are far from negligible new members. With 345 votes in Council, and 255 needed to adopt a measure by a qualified majority, 91 votes will be needed to form a blocking minority. On these figures, such a minority could be made up, for instance, of the UK and Poland + Romania and Bulgaria + either the Czech Republic, Hungary or all the Baltics.