No Comment from New Vietnam

Are Police Officers Attractive?

This is a direct quote from The Times and I cannot improve upon it by further comment. It is by Jack Malvern:

Two police officers who were asked to leave a pub for exuberant kissing were criticised by a magistrate for turning a drunken row into a police matter.

Nicola Stewart and Lisa Curchun, her girlfriend, both police constables, were asked to leave by Nicola Hackett, the landlady of The Old Cock Inn, in April last year. The pair reported Ms Hackett to their colleagues, who charged her with a public order offence. Penny Williams, presiding at St Albans Magistrates Court, cleared Ms Hackett and noted that the policewomen and two companions, who acted as witnesses for the prosecution, had drunk a “fair amount of alcohol” that night.

Ms Hackett said: “I can’t have my customers made to feel uncomfortable by public displays of passion, by gay or heterosexual couples."

Veronica Connolly's Right to Free Speech

Is Veronica Connolly's right to free speech infringed if she is convicted of sending malicious communications by posting pictures of aborted foetuses to pharmacists as a protest against their providing the morning after pill?

The court has, so far, ruled not. I say "so far" because it is believed there will be an appeal of today's decision.

One thing only is clear about this case. There should be an appeal. Today's decision has unsatisfactory aspects that need to be clarified at a higher level; eventually, perhaps, by the European Court of Justice.

For instance, Lord Justice Dyson said this:

In my judgment, the persons who worked in the three pharmacies which were targeted by Mrs Connolly had the right not to have sent to them material of the kind that she sent when it was her purpose, or one of her purposes, to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient. Just as members of the public have the right to be protected from such material (sent for such a purpose) in the privacy of their homes, so too, in general terms, do people in the workplace. But it must depend on the circumstances. The more offensive the material, the greater the likelihood that such persons have the right to be protected from receiving it. But the recipient may not be a person who needs such protection. Thus, for example, the position of a doctor who routinely performs abortions who receives photographs similar to those that were sent by Mrs Connolly in this case may well be materially different from that of employees in a pharmacy which happens to sell the "morning after pill". It seems to me that such a doctor would be less likely to find the photographs grossly offensive than the pharmacist's employees. To take a different example, suppose that it were Government policy to support abortion. A member of the Cabinet who spoke publicly in support of abortion and who received such photographs in his office in Westminster might well stand on a different footing from a member of the public who received them in the privacy of his home or at his place of work.

Can a right to free speech be limited or varied according to the audience?

Article 9 of the Human Rights Convention provides specific protection of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and the right to express those views.

Article 9(2) essentially allows restrictions where they are for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Article 10 provides protection of a more general right to freedom of expression i.e. not resticted to the more specic matters in Article 9 (although, given the inclusion of the word "thought" in Article 9, you may have difficulty thinking up examples where both articles are not engaged simultaneously).

Article 10(2) includes a similar reference to the rights of others as does 9(2) but is qualified by the important distinction that the limitation must be necessary in a democratic society.

This, to me, is the key. I am a fairly old fashioned believer in free speech. You can say anything you like. This should be subject only to the laws relating to defamation but these only create private rights of action that should not restrict you from saying what you want to say in the first place (at your own risk) and not a criminal sanction*. That is the core concept in defining a democratic society. It is so fundamental that this decision must be appealed and that is totally regardless of Veronica Connolly's views about abortion and the morning after pill and whether or not you do or do not agee with them.

This is an important case and you can read it here.

*Yes I am aware that we have a law relating to criminal libel. How many prosecutions, annually, do you think there are?

PMOS on Road Pricing

You need to know that a PMOS is a Prime Minister's Official Spokesman - something like, but not much like, Tony Blair's representative in this dimension. Why the PMOS was allocated this humiliating acronym (pronounce it) is anybody's idea but looks and sounds very much like a Civil Service internal joke against the PM. Of course, it could just be incompetence.

Asked if he still thought that e-petitions were a good idea, and what numbers would have to be reached before Government put its hand up and retreated, the PMOS replied that it was always a good idea when there was a lively political debate. We had always recognised that there was a lively debate around transport as it was an issue that directly affected people's lives. Therefore, the livelier the debate, the better. But the debate in itself would not produce a solution. The crucial point about this issue was that doing nothing was not an option.

What he missed:

A petition is not a "lively political debate". In fact, it resembles a lively political debate about as much as a bendy bus resembles a red squirrel. The bendy bus and the squirrel are both red (but not quite the same shade). So, signing a petition and expressing an opinion are both indicators of viewpoint (but not quite in the same way).

Pressing some keys to register on a petition probably (but does not necessarily) require you to be alive (you could have set your computer to autofill before you died) but it certainly does not require you to be "lively" or to engage in any kind of "debate".

What he meant:

"We have to pretend that you are a nice bunch of sentients, and flatter you a bit, but we don't mean it and we are going to ignore your trivial attempts to resemble us."

The reality:

There is, however, a resemblance between a PMOS and a PM and one which they share with both the bus and the squirrel. They are all "bendy".

He is also reported as follows:

Put to him that we could not just ignore this petition if it got to 2 or 3 million names, the PMOS replied that it was not a matter of numbers.

What he missed:

When it comes election time, it most certainly is "a matter of numbers".

What he meant:

"This petition thingy was thought up by a pratt who has now been reassigned to dustbins and I do not mean that he is engaged on high policy issues concerning refuse collection and recycling. He is emptying them."

The reality:

This policy represents a nasty piece of paper that the government intends to place in the nearest dustbin as soon as everyone's back is turned.

One last report of what the PMOS said:

Asked if the Prime Minister thought that cannabis use was a bar to becoming Prime Minister, the PMOS replied that the journalist was trying to invite him, not very subtly, into political debate. He may have lost his voice at Croke Park yesterday, but he had not entirely lost his mind.

What he missed:

The use of "not entirely" suggests that the PMOS is only a bit mindless. Surely a fit for purpose PMOS should have an entire mind? Did the Civil Service Board miss something or is it just what happens when you become a PMOS? Do you have to volunteer or are PMOS's appointed? Do all the eligible civil servant's quickly find cupboards to hide in and the idiot who can't find a cupboard gets appointed? We need to know. Without this information it is completely impossible to judge the culpability of this particular PMOS or just how egregious the PMOS is. A public inquiry seems to be an immediate necessity.

What he meant:

"I'm out of mind on drugs. Why else would I be standing here in front of you?"

The reality:

The PMOS has a partner, four children, a cat and a huge mortgage. Bearing in mind that civil servants are unemployable in the private sector unless they are perceived to retain departmental influence, the PMOS needs to keep the job at any cost. The PMOS also does not relish emptying dustbins.

Conclusion:

Peeing on moss is what the dear old CS does best! They identify a futile activity, form a committee to decide whether to do it, decide after long and costly deliberation to do it, expend minimal effort, fail utterly and charge us on the basis that, well, it might have been a good idea.

Law: The Rules of the Game, the House Rules and the Big Casino

Daniel Finkelstein of The Times has posted a new competition that lets you get to play at being a rule-maker. Just click the title to play and you are an instant Parliamentary Draftsman.

Lawyers love rules. Not only do we have thousands of statutes; we then have procedural rules, with lots of commentary and case law on those.

No litigator leaves the office to go to court without volume 1 of the White Book (this not only contains the Civil Procedure Rules but lots and lots of commentary and case references).

The bare bones of the CPR can be found here but you will not really be equipped to engage in the fine art of legal combat unless you acquire a copy of the White Book.

Volume 2 is taken out for a walk less often because:

1. the lawyer does not wish to risk a finding of contributory negligence for carrying too much weight should he trip over or fall down any stairs and want to sue someone; and,



2. his opponent is less likely to refer to something in volume 2 that he or she is not already aware of (it is largely a collection statutes etc. already available elsewhere); and,



3. hernias are bad for one's practice. NB: women can get hernias as well as men.

Each volume is bigger than the average house brick, and weighs as much or more, so they are a clear and present danger to anyone who carries them around. I suppose they could also be useful as a weapon of defence. Also, they do not carry the same risk of being had up for going equipped as you might if you were carrying an actual house brick.

But lawyers love the White Book. Assiduous study of its many thousands of pages of procedural law (printed on thin paper and with the notes printed in tiny type) have won many a case. The main use is therefore as a weapon of offence. Not by throwing it but by being aware of its contents.

The notes in the White Book keep lawyers employed. Years of training are necessary to understand these procedural rules (!) and the arcane and delphic utterances of the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords upon what they might or might not mean lead to the conclusion that, since they (the Lords and the Lords Justices of Appeal) cannot agree, I might have been right so you cannot get me for negligence if I advise you the wrong way.

Well, you might pot me - given what I have said above - but every other lawyer is safe.

"Put your money on red," I might have said. I might have explained to you that there was a limited chance of the ball hitting black (given the current state of the case law) and virtually no chance of a green (zero or double zero). In a casino I would have given you different advice. I would have told you that it was entirely random. I would have told you that there was no such thing as the law of averages.

Casino type advice is now required by our pro-active judges who demand that we practice clairvoyance rather than law and nowhere more so than in the family courts. I will post further about these anathema on another occasion.

New Blogger Layout No Good for Personal Hosters

One might say that this post is biting the hand that feeds it but the main advantage of the new blogger accounts seems to be the layout tool. This appears not to work unless you host your site at blogger and and the layout tool does not provide sufficient added value to make the change from hosting at a personal website (for those of us who like the comfort of that) worthwhile.

"The new drag-and-drop template feature, Layouts, is not available for blogs published via FTP. Update, 12/18: Because Layouts relies heavily on new Blogger’s dynamic serving of pages, this is unlikely to be supported soon if ever."

Please note the words "if ever."

Nick Griffin Exposes Oxford Students' Totalitarian Views

Oxide Radio has been banned by the student union from interviewing Nick Griffin, the BNP chairman. I have been thus informed by my daughter who also sent a link to an article Death Threats Sent to Oxide DJs in The Oxford Student.

It is sad to be forced to agree with Nick Griffin (his views are disgusting) but he has justifiably complained about this infringement of his right to free speech.

A university is one institution that is entirely dependent on freedom of speech. It ia a pity that every generation of students seems to have to relearn that:

• freedom of speech is worthless if it is extended only to those who share your own views;


• it is your freedom that you risk when you adopt such an attitude because the prevailing view may change against you;


• having accepted the principle that free speech may be curtailed you will have lost the right to complain if your views are then suppressed;


• the way to defeat and undermine false positions is to expose them to the light of open debate; and


• suppression of particular views tends to lend them revolutionary cachet attracting rather than deterrring followers.

University Challenge: Who famously said words to that effect? The answer is at the end.

Oxford University is supposed to be a home to enlightenment and so it is a big disappointment that the students (or some of them) have provided Griffin (whose views they rightly despise) with the opportunity to portray himself as oppressed.

Tony Blair, although not a great fan of his critics being entirely free to express their views, has yet to threaten to assassinate any of them.

What did the students who made this decision think was going to happen as a result of a radio interview, in the course of which I assume the DJs would have challenged Griffin's views? Griffin was going to gain vast support among their fellow students? This does seem to show some disrespect for their fellow students' intelligence.

Answer to Uniiversity Challenge:

You probably thought the answer was Voltaire. It is not. It was a made up saying summing up Voltaire's attitude written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall writing under the pseudonym S G Tallentyre in The Friends of Voltaire.

"The men who had hated [the book], and had not particularly loved Helvétius, flocked round him now. Voltaire forgave him all injuries, intentional or unintentional. 'What a fuss about an omelette!' he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that! 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,' was his attitude now."

Quiz Time on Liberty TV

It has been said that it is wrong for the police and others to maintain a running commentary on the cash for peerages debate.

Short quiz:

(1) Who said that?

(2) Name as many countries as you can think of that have suppressed free speech.

(3) How do we generally describe such countries?

Ok, I am dying to give you a clue to the last question.

Start with a capital "D".

Site Maintenance = Boring Post

I have had a little trouble with site maintenance over the past few days. This had to do with my using google's blogger but hosting the blog on my own site. I started fiddling with the files outside of blogger and seem to have created conflicts. If you can see this post the conflicts have been resolved and I can start posting again. You may wonder why I am bothering since so far I have an audience of 1. You know who you are, Tina. All blogs take time to build an audience, so we will see.

My answer to Tina's comment on an earlier post is as follows: