John Reid, the North British Home Secretary of England, has announced new plans to stop people from getting off convictions on technicalities.

He is referring to things such as the police failing to read a suspects rights correctly or police using out-of-date warrants to search properties.  There is, of course, a lot of money to be made from getting people off offences on technicalities – a lot of footballers and celebrities would have been banned from driving long ago if it weren’t for these technicalities.

This is being sold as another one of those tidying up exercises like the Legal and Legislative Reform Bill (aka the Abolition of Parliament Act) and the EU Constitution but there’s an important principle at point here.  If a person hasn’t been read their rights correctly then due process hasn’t been followed and, according to the law, that person can’t be charged.  Similarly, if a person gets off on a technicality then that is because, under that technical point of law, the person hasn’t committed an offence or can’t be punished.

This isn’t somebody escaping the law, it is the law.