Moral ignorance on a staggering scale

[fpb]

David Davis MP appears to have been so disgusted by the notion of extending preventive jail from 28 to 42 days (an extra two weeks) that he resigns to fight a by-election over it.

He apparently did not consider that the law, or rather "law", that allows the hybridization of human and animal cells was not so serious. He made no such fuss then, when the immorality of Gordon Brown compassed most of those who heard of it with a shudder.

I hope this man is a posturing mountebank. Because if he is serious and means what he says, then his complete inability to distinguish moral issues is horrifying in a politician who claims to be Conservative. Not, of course, in the least surprising, but horrifying nevertheless.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The obvious thing to do would be to do what is done in Italy and, I suppose, other Code Napoleon countries: to bring the reasons for arrest to a judge at the moment of the arrest, and let the judge decide then if the arrest is justified, and then have the time necessary for investigation. Italian law also allows preventive carceration if the suspect is a seriously dangerous person, e.g. if we are talking about a chronic thug or repeat murderer. A judge has to decide at the beginning. There is also a practice of notifying people when they are being investigated (so-called "avvisi di garanzia" or guarantee warnings), again from the desks of judges. There is a whole class of judges which is dedicated to overseeing police investigations. Of couse the problem then is that judges and police can get too close to each other, but the notion of arrest without oversight, which is what people really dread about British preventive jail, is certainly worse.

What happened to the person who was abducted, and to the trial in which her father was involved?

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

I suppose the 'guarantee warnings' are similar to the suspect status in Portugal that we have become familiar with in Portugal.

The girl who was abducted was placed in the boot (trunk) of a car and was able to make such a noise when the car was stopped in traffic that the kidnappers ran away when approached. I believe a retrial was required but it was a very long time ago - before Diplock courts, probably very early seventies.