Gutting the Law.

Another piece of absurdity from this crowd of know-nothings.

Killers should serve longer in prison if their victims' relatives can persuade judges to increase their sentences, a government minister said yesterday.

Harriet Harman, the constitutional affairs minister, was proposing that relatives of murder or manslaughter victims should have the opportunity to make a verbal statement in court after conviction, but before sentence.

She revealed that relatives might face cross-examination on their statements by defence counsel if the facts were disputed.

In a consultation paper published yesterday, the Government avoided the question of what effect a relative's comments might have on the sentence passed in a manslaughter case, or the minimum period to be served by a murderer.

But asked directly whether the statement could or should affect the length of time an offender spent in prison, Miss Harman admitted: "It might do".

What is this? Adding the principles of Sharia law to the Common Law? So if the husband of the murdered woman says "Well, I forgive him, I was going to leave her anyway, saved me a lot in alimony, actually" then he gets off?

As Jarndyce wrote some months back:

Well, not quite. Because it seems that this remarkably efficient self-publicist speaks for me, or at least people like me. I have a right to a say in the sentence handed down, apparently, and maybe if NuLabour are re-elected that right will become law. My 'feelings' as a parent of the victim ought to be considered when the punishment is handed down by the court.

To which the only appropriate response is: complete bollocks. This isn't fucking Sharia law, or any other form of populist LCD 'justice'. We have a legal system based on sound principles which deals with this sort of thing. The only way to ensure an equitable outcome is for judges and juries to take a dispassionate view. Otherwise what you are left with isn't justice, but institutionalized and sentimentalized state vengeance. As with ID cards, detention without trial and double jeopardy, Labour seem unable or unwilling to grasp basic law. They might have jettisoned their own principles without a second thought, but they shouldn't be allowed to dump society's so thoughtlessly. It's up to us on May 5th.

Quite. And as Ms. Harriman says:

While admitting that she was "proposing a big change in the way courts work"

So why are you doing it? Pandering to the crowd? But you’re the Constitutional Affairs Minister! You’re supposed to protect things like the Majesty of the Law from interference from bone headed populists, not encourage them!

There are days when I think Guy Fawkes had the right idea.