The strange tale of the government's legal highs bill rumbles on, with former drug adviser David Nutt going further than usual in his description of its authors as "miserable sods". Every day also brings fresh evidence of the extraordinary breadth of the bill, with some now suggesting - convincingly - that it would ban oxygen. Clearly, some lawyers are going to have to go to work on it, but it is hard to see how it can do what the government wants it to do without these baffling side effects.
In other news, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes are preparing for their trip to Strasbourg to challenge the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to pursue a prosecution for the police officers who shot him. The case will be relevant in two respects. Firstly, it opens up the possibility of new standards to pursue deaths at the hands of, or following contact with, the police - an area in which there has never been a successful prosecution for manslaughter or murder. Secondly, it threatens to blow the Westminster debate over human rights law wide open again. Watch this one closely. | |
No comments:
Post a Comment