An interesting and somewhat tub thumping article (as would be expected) in The Telegraph today about the Supreme Court ruling on sex offenders right to appeal :

David Cameron has said he is ”appalled” by a Supreme Court ruling that will give paedophiles and rapists the right to appeal against having their names on the sex offenders register for life.

…

Mr Cameron told MPs at Prime Minister’s Question Time: ”I am appalled by the Supreme Court ruling. We will take the minimum possible approach to this ruling.”

Police will have the final decision on whether a sex offender should remain on the register and there will be no right of appeal against a decision to keep an offender on the register, Mrs May said.

…

“For it is time to assert that it is Parliament that makes our laws, not the courts; that the rights of the public come before the rights of criminals; and above all, that we have a legal framework that brings sanity to cases such as these,” she said,

Take the paedomania out of the equation and you are left with a rather stark vision of a government determined to label people for life. Whilst this would not necessarily be an issue at all if the register was as described i.e. a  register of violent and sexual offenders it is evidently (to my  mind) one of Labours special devices to give power to the police and ignore the process of Law (emphasis mine) :

In the United Kingdom, the Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR) is a database of records of those required to register with the Police under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, those jailed for more than 12 months for violent offences, and unconvicted people simply thought to be at risk of offending.

Yes, we have that little snippet where unproven allegations can tar someones name. Much as they can be used to influence a decision on the Vetting and Barring scheme and CRB checks (have a look at an earlier article for how this works).

There is also the fact that the Sexual Offences Act 2003 made consensual sex between people under the age of 16 illegal and some of these people have also found their way onto the register with no right of appeal or removal. Imagine the consequences of a roll in the hay aged 15 blighting your career for life due to the CRB and Offenders register process?

The current government seems to be quite content to continue to use the police as their law maker rather than the judiciary – to requote from above :

Police will have the final decision on whether a sex offender should remain on the register and there will be no right of appeal against a decision to keep an offender on the register, Mrs May said.

How is this not seen as completely wrong I do not know especially when it can include unproven allegations.

The Police are supposed to uphold the law not make the law.

Until this situation is changed then any talk of Freedom Bills and concern for peoples rights are pointless in the extreme.

The article also raises a further question on why the government seems hell bent on attacking the courts these days under the guise of human rights abuses :

“I can also tell my honorary friend that the commission we are establishing to look at a British Bill of Rights will be established imminently, because I think it is about time we started making sure decisions are made in this Parliament rather than in the courts.”

Decisions may be made in Parliament my dear but the whole idea of a separation of powers is that the judiciary are there to limit the excesses of the executive.

As the division between the executive and legislature is already blurred to buggery after years of fiddling, the judiciary is the only safeguard we have left before we descend into dictatorship.

A government hell bent on beating up the judiciary under the guise of rediculous human rights legislation and promising to take “the minimum possible approach” to legal rulings is a very ominous sign.