File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_1999/anarchy-list.9907, message 445


From: "Andy" <as-AT-spelthorne.ac.uk>
Subject: A pedant leaps in
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 10:21:29 +0100


Scott

>>when you get Keri back home that it's illegal to beat
>>her with a rod thicker than your thumb (UK fun fact).


Dave

>Well I'm sorry to spoil the joke (well not _very_ sorry),
>I hate to be pedantic about this.......no, that's not true,
>I love being pedantic, I've been taking lessons from Andy.


Recognition from a master.....

Dave

>But are you saying there is actually such a law still
>on the statute book ?


I'd be surprised...every so often Parliament abolishes laws which have had
their day. I seem to remember a few going in the 70s inc. the one which said
policemen on the beat had to walk with one foot in the gutter and one on the
kerb, and the one that said that prams had to be pushed on the road, not the
pavement. This particular law has been somewhat superseded by the Kiranjit
Ahluwalia and Sara Thornton cases, where the cumulative effects of years of
abuse were used to argue down apparently pre-meditated murder to
manslaughter. This was largely due to campaigning activists particularly the
Southall Black Sisters, one of whom I used to teach. This probably puts
English law a bit ahead of the rest of the world.


>If that  _is_  what you are saying,
>then I must point out that there is, in fact, no such
>thing as "UK law", and there never has been. There
>is Scottish law, and there is English law.

And the Scots have better names, like "Procurator Fiscal", also a very old
TV series starring Iain Cuthbertson, which Dave might remember.

>All the notorious
>miscarriages of justice of the past umpteen years
>which have led to the state finally having to admit
>having got things wrong involved English law. Those
>cases would almost certainly have led to "not proven"
>verdicts under Scottish law. However, the case against
>the two LIbyans, due to be tried in the Netherlands
>for bombing that Pan Am jet, will be tried under
>the very different rules of Scottish law.

So this is the Scots' big chance. I would imagine the US press is gung-ho
about the Libyans, but there is a lot of doubt in some circles and the
doctor bloke who spokespersons the British end is being very circumspect
 I think this was discussed some time ago]. Many think that it was Syrians
what dunnit, but Syrians became our friends shortly afterwards because they
"helped" in Lebanon. So as Dave intimates a "non proven" might be the one to
go for at the bookies.

Meanwhile, Gadaffi has apologised for the murder of WPC [they only became
PCs later] Yvonne Fletcher and pledged to allow a full investigation, and
diplomatic niceties are being resumed. What's going on here? Is Libya in
dire[r] straits?









   

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