Programmer Faces Terror Charge:

[Jeremy Barker]

David Hansen wrote:

> On 23 Sep 2002 at 20:06, Jeremy Barker wrote:
>
> > Because a lot
> > of innocent everyday things are caught if they have been collected for
> > terrorist purposes the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions
> > is required before proceedings may commence.
>
> Feel free to correct me, but is that the case in England with all
> criminal cases? It is not something special given the ridiculously
> broad nature of this "law".

The requirement for DPP's (or the Attorney General's) consent only applies
to a fairly small selection of offences. Although there are no set types of
offence that consent applies to it is usual for widely drawn offences, such
as those in the Terrorism Act, to attract a consent requirement.  They can
be viewed as being present to control prosecutions in circumstances where a
law has been drafted in broad terms thereby creating a risk that it will
catch people (such as innocent collectors of information in this instance)
who have not offended against the spirit of the legislation.

If you want to read further I strongly recomment the Law Commission's report
on consents to prosecution.  A summary can be found at
http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/library/lc255/lc255sum.htm and the full report is
at http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/library/lc255/lc255.pdf


> > That allows someone
> > independent of the police to ascertain whether there are proper
> > grounds for prosecution
>
> I'm not reassured. These jokers have a fairly long record of
> harassing innocent people, while leaving the guilty free.

An opinion to which you are entitled but with which I would be very slow to
agree.  The problem is that that sort of comment is usually made by
politically motivated people rather than those who are interested in the
legal system.  Operation of the criminal justice system is not an
appropriate place to exercise political views.  Politics come in when
considering whether a particular offence should exist but once it does
politics ends.  The justice system should operate in an essentially
mechanistic way to prosecute those against whom sufficient evidence is
available to secure a conviction.


> I would not suggest a radically different system. However, those
> involved should be accountable, which is not the case at the moment.

It depends on how you define "accountable".  I would forcefully argue that
DPP consents are highly accountable, being subject to the full remit of
judicial review.  I do not like a system in which accountability is in
political arena which I am far less happy about AG consents than I am about
DPP consents although I can see why AG consents are sometimes necessary.

jb