Coroners and Justice Bill

[Nicholas Bohm]

Pete Mitchell wrote:
> Nicholas Bohm wrote  on 27-01-09 12:05:
>>
>> 50B would be read as limited by the purposes of 50A (information
>> sharing), and the process you describe would be held to be ultra vires.
>>
> 
> I would like to be quite sure of that. Most statutes I have read, where
>  para 99(b) is intended to modify the action of para 99(a), it begins
> something like "For the purposes of s.99(a)", or some similar wording.
> To take an example with which we are all familiar, "(3) Where, in a case
> in which a disclosure requirement in respect of any protected
> information is imposed on any person by a section 49 notice ... ". The
> words make clear that the text that follows applies only to the
> paragraphs explicitly cited.
> 
> Whereas the statement "An information-sharing order may (h) modify any
> enactment" can at least be argued by a malevolent Attorney-General to
> mean exactly what it says - *any* enactment.
> 
> Unless there is specific and incontrovertible case law to stop them, I
> wouldn't trust this bunch of criminals one single inch. In fact, not
> even then.

Complete certainty about the future is of course a tricky objective.
But 50A(1) says:

"Subject to the following provisions of this Part, a designated
authority may by order (an “information-sharing order”) enable any
person to share information which consists of or includes personal data."

50B applies to information-sharing orders, i.e. orders whose purpose is
to enable a person to share information which consists of or includes
personal data.

50B would not apply to orders pretending to be information-sharing
orders but intended to create some arbitrary offence.

It's bad stuff; I suppose we must all oppose what we dislike most about it.

Nicholas
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