In the light of the miscarriage of justices that brought Nigel Evans MP to near-bankruptcy and all but ruined the names of Michael Le Vell and Bill Roache, may I humbly propose the following two suggestions.
First of all, there ought to be legislation [aside from libel and slander laws] which ensures that false accusers and false witnesses are penalised. It seems scandalous that anyone can denounce someone to the law and the CPS [the Crown Persecution Service] and such individuals get away with their half-baked accusations scot free, while the accused must suffer enormously during the pre-trial period as well as during their court ordeal. Nobody wants to deter witnesses or anyone speaking up against criminal activity, but by the same token there needs to be a mechanism in place whereby anyone who wrongly accuses someone is penalised with say a £1,000 fine if the accused is acquitted in a subsequent trial. It simply won’t do for all and sundry to be afforded carte blanche in future to accuse anyone on the back of dubious charges and flimsy evidence.
Secondly, I think that solicitors have a lot to answer for. Many solicitors are at least as reptilian as the much-reviled bankers and expenses-claimers. It strikes me that solicitors mischievously ‘egg on’ their clients to pursue legal action [irrespective of the potential outcome] safe in the knowledge that he or she has a big payday coming their way. It seems to be in the monetary interests of many mercenaries within the legal profession to pursue legal cases because they are a “nice little earner”. Again, some form of regulation is belatedly overdue to ensure that solicitors don’t gain enormously from other people’s suffering. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we frequently find solictors advising clients whose chances are clearly hopeless to plead not guilty and contrive to engineer a costly trial which is a drain on the public purse while solictors and barristers laugh all the way to the bank.
Just as there is a real need for regulation of bankers, and of newspapers, and of parliamentarians, so there is also a need to review and legislate against abuses and injustices in the law.
First of all, there ought to be legislation [aside from libel and slander laws] which ensures that false accusers and false witnesses are penalised. It seems scandalous that anyone can denounce someone to the law and the CPS [the Crown Persecution Service] and such individuals get away with their half-baked accusations scot free, while the accused must suffer enormously during the pre-trial period as well as during their court ordeal. Nobody wants to deter witnesses or anyone speaking up against criminal activity, but by the same token there needs to be a mechanism in place whereby anyone who wrongly accuses someone is penalised with say a £1,000 fine if the accused is acquitted in a subsequent trial. It simply won’t do for all and sundry to be afforded carte blanche in future to accuse anyone on the back of dubious charges and flimsy evidence.
Secondly, I think that solicitors have a lot to answer for. Many solicitors are at least as reptilian as the much-reviled bankers and expenses-claimers. It strikes me that solicitors mischievously ‘egg on’ their clients to pursue legal action [irrespective of the potential outcome] safe in the knowledge that he or she has a big payday coming their way. It seems to be in the monetary interests of many mercenaries within the legal profession to pursue legal cases because they are a “nice little earner”. Again, some form of regulation is belatedly overdue to ensure that solicitors don’t gain enormously from other people’s suffering. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we frequently find solictors advising clients whose chances are clearly hopeless to plead not guilty and contrive to engineer a costly trial which is a drain on the public purse while solictors and barristers laugh all the way to the bank.
Just as there is a real need for regulation of bankers, and of newspapers, and of parliamentarians, so there is also a need to review and legislate against abuses and injustices in the law.
No comments:
Post a Comment