Instant Justice = No Justice

So here we go again. Further plans to undermine the concepts of fairness and justice which we rightly hold so dear. We have already seen some small steps in this direction with the powers the police already have. Now they are proposing that this should be taken further with more powers to dispense instant justice. The end result of all this is that the police become prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner all in one. This is not good for justice and in the long run this will not be good for the police.

There is a trend developing here where the debate starts over the principle as a result of which the proposals (say detention without charge) get watered down. Nonetheless the principle becomes established. Later on the government comes back with further proposals and the debate gets sucked into the detail rather than the principle. The ninety day detention is probably going to be back on the agenda after recent events and we will end up seeing the debate conducted over the detail of whether or not it should be ninety days rather than over the principle of whether or not we should be detaining people without charging them. I hope our parliamentary team will be focused on bringing the debate around to the principles