Geeklawyer reads of two hard done by motorists nailed by Gatso speed cameras. No doubt one of them was guilty, 47 in a 30 zone is a fair-cop Geeklawyer reckons - even though he frequently exceeds that himself while astride ‘The Terrible and Inexorable Wrath of God’ - no, what honks Geeklawyer off is the tiresome abuses of human rights associated with driving offences. One is required to incriminate oneself or ones friends. Idris Francis was fined and given penalty points for failing to incriminate himself or his friend. Mr O’Halloran the driver was fined and given penalty points for refusing to admit his guilt and refusing to help the government prosecute him. Naturally they were convicted by imbecilic magistrates, and all appeals to the spineless higher courts failed. They are now engaged in the usually futile resort of last measure: an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Good luck.
As usual our supine judiciary has taken the view that civil liberties are a damned nuisance to be circumvented where possible. The argument, the unspoken premise, being that driving matters give rise to minor penalties & the consequences of speeding are serious that mere ‘technicalities’ like fair trials should not allow the guilty to evade justice.
Bollocks. Hairy diamond encrusted bollocks.
One of the prime reasons politicians introduce increasingly repellant laws emasculating our civil liberties is that those laws addressing these ‘trivial’ problems are not being subject to effective or principled judicial scrutiny. If the constitutional settlement hadn’t left our judiciary bereft of testicles we might live in a society with less populist and demagogic politicians.
Geeklawyer has said it before: the world will not be free and fair until he is made Supreme Protector.
As I...
Worse still, the Department for Transport (DfT) has just, for the first time ever, released statistics on what causes road accidents. Our liberty was sold cheaply indeed…
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22749-2380204.html
BTW Just looked at your ‘about’ profile. Love the anti-camera device you have on the number plates. Where do I get one?
[…] has mentioned before the case of two motorists who have been compelled under anti-civil liberties legislation to […]
Yeah, motorists are like so victimized. Only yesterday I saw a bloke being prevented from doing a perfectly reasonable fifty in a built up area, just because some old biddy wanted to cross the road. Down my way, so many drivers have to wait to drive down the road because there are so many thoughtless pedestrians who insist on crossing it. That’s to say nothing of all the fumes we have to breathe in while we’re driving. I think all politicians, lawyers, judges and journalists, in fact everyone everywhere, should be forced to travel by car at least once a day so they know what it feels like. If we don’t act now, motorists are in very real danger of becoming a persecuted minority.