Despite the fact that judges – like the police – are supposed to be the independent upholders of the law, Lord Justice Sedley has called for everyone to be on a DNA database.
Sedley says that the current system is unfair because only people who have been involved with the police are on the database. He cites the fact that people who are arrested but not charged or people who are convicted but subsequently acquitted have their DNA on the police database forever but rather than draw the obvious conclusion – that keeping DNA of innocent people is wrong and should be taken off the database – he concludes that every innocent person in the country should have their DNA profile stored on a police database.
Lucky for Lord Justice Sedley that the British government is going to force every citizen to hand over a DNA sample for a big database and that every child is going to appear on a childrens identity database which will no doubt be expanded to include DNA samples of children as well. But as this is all going to happen anyway, why does Sedley feel the need to ask for it anyway? The only reasonable conclusion is that he is promoting New Liebour policy which is highly inappropriate for a member of the judiciary.
Two Cold-War style Elitist Barons come-out as Demagogues.
Elitist Barons Lord Justice Sedley & fame seeking, Hitler look-alike Yorkshire-man Lord Justice MacKenzie express zealotry for the cause of DNA data-basing everyone in the UK. They ascertain that even weekend visitors to the country must be added in permanence to what will be a 60-70M people inclusive log of everyone’s unique DNA ‘fingerprint’.
In showing their preference for the ‘old-guard’ Stalinistic approach to Governance so prevalent in Britain back in the 1970’s-1980’s are these Peers of the realm by inheritance seeking for the power-broker a ‘joining at the hip’ of the Elite law maker with the street-savvy, frequently intoxicated & would be prison-bully class that scouted our streets 20 years ago.
Introduce these ammendments to the NDNAD (National DNA Database)& every flag waving Englander in Little Britain will be able to say with pride: ‘If you ‘aven’t done nuffin’ wrong, I can’t see what yer worried abaaat!”
In Scotland the law is not the same:
People arrested in Scotland currently have their DNA and records destroyed if they are acquitted, or held for a maximum of five years if they have been charged but not convicted of a serious violent crime.
I’m trying to remember that Peter Cook sketch..
“Yes, I could have been a judge but I never had the Latin, never had the Latin for the judging… so I became a miner instead. I managed to get through the mining exams… being a miner, as soon as you are too old and tired and sick and stupid to do the job properly, you have to go. Well, the very opposite applies with judges…”
The judiciary is not independent. It never has been. If it had been it would’ve screamed and shouted when the EUrolanders used underhand tactics to gain control of our beloved countries!
Mr Marks, this isn’t about your class obsession bollocks! Blair, Brown, Sedley at al are all in it together. Class is yesterdays old news pal! For crying out loud, damned socialists/marxists/stalinists etc have done nothing to try and stop what has been going on. Nothing! All you do is talk! “Oh, we have to set the agenda otherwise the right wing bogeymen ghoulies from hell will control it instead” Meanwhile, Blair et al go on committing crime after crime!
M Anderson, you are right about the judiciary. However you are wrong about class.
If the judiciary was made up of elected judges who would face the wrath of working class voters, they would not be calling for a pointless database of law-abiding citizens!
And if working people had power in England, criminals like Blair would be behind bars!
I take the point about the Judiciary and politics, but cannot help feeling that everyone is missing a matter of real concern. I notice that the BBC say “some scientists have warned that as the database grows the chances of two very similar profiles from two different people emerging increases” which is an understatment along the lines of large nail bombs are slightly more likely to kill people they are not specifically aimed at than sniper rifles are.
I have worked with systems where the probability of a clash was 1 in 4 billion and we had regular clashes due tot he way large numbers combine. The moment we put large numbers of profiles in a DNA database we have to assume we will be sending a fair number of innocent people to jail. I rather doubt that this is something Lord Justice Sedley really means to be call for?
Rufus Evison
reasonedrants.blogspot.com
P.S.I saw your comment on advertising, if mention of my blog counts feel free to termove it, but I have a relevant article there.
Rufus, you are right. The DNA database is not even effective. If there was a choice between investing in what is no more than a wacking great gift to contractors (namely this bloody expensive computer system) or real world improvements in security (like ensuring that weapons are not being smuggled into the country, for example) people would favour the practical option…
I think part of the problem is highlighted by Grandpa;s earlier comment where he refers to “everyone’s unique DNA ‘fingerprint’”. The problem is that everyone is unique, their DNA is unique (ignore identical twins for a moment) but their DNA fingerprint is not. Many pairs of people who are unrelated share genetic fingerprints.
I will have to write a post about this sometime soon as it has not been made clear to people. If the DNA fingerprint were genuinely unique there would still be a problem in the persistence and transferability of DNA. As the fingerprint is not unique the other problems fade in terms of significance.
Rufus Evison
ReasonedRants.BlogSpot.Com