Innocent Until Proven Guilty, A Dickensian Belief That Must Be Changed!

Labour's plans to extend Police and Local Authority powers, if you're innocent, tough!

Today at the Labour Party Conference, Prime Minister Tony Blair confirmed what many already know to be true, justice in this country is to be further compromised by radical plans to overhaul the Criminal Justice System.

In his speech, Tony Blair states his intentions to reverse the present premise that people are 'innocent until proven guilty'.

"The whole of our system starts from the proposition that its' duty is to protect the innocent from being wrongly accused." He goes on to say, "But surely our primary duty should be to allow law-abiding people to live in safety."

"The system itself is the problem."

Tony Blair believes that what is needed now is "..a complete change of thinking." Regarding an individuals present basic entitlement to human rights, he says "It means deciding whose come first."

His primary actions to increase the prosecution and conviction rates is to provide "a radical extension of summary powers to police and local authorities".

In this same speech, Tony Blair spoke of Britain as being "stronger, fairer, better than on 1st May 1997." He spoke of a belief in social justice of "proper behaviour, good conduct" and "the unselfish notion that the other person matters."

Despite proposing to hand over ever increasing powers to Police and Local Authorities, Mr Blair claimed that "Today is not the era of the big state; but a strategic one; empowering, enabling, putting decision making in the hands of people not government."

Tony Blair in bringing his speech to a close, he states; "Let ours be the Party, the one with the values of social justice, equality, fairness, that helps Britain turn a friendly face to the future."

For those who have experienced Britain's Criminal Justice System, this signifies a frightening move closer to a Police State. What little justice there still may be within the current dysfunctional system, is there solely because of the basic belief in innocence until guilt is proven in a court of law. Though due to gross abuse of justice and human rights, we are already having to fight to be presumed innocent when faced with an accusation. How much harder is it going to be if that presumption is removed altogether?

To remove the right to be presumed innocent, is to legally establish an allegation of guilt as proof of guilt.

Already, far too many people are being convicted solely on the basis of unproven allegations (particularly evident in historical cases of abuse), without further corroborative evidence being required. These moves will open up the opportunity to increase prosecution and conviction rates exponentially by removing the requirement for corroborative evidence in all criminal cases.

This is illustrated by the fact that you cannot disprove an allegation of something which did not happen anyway!

If someone makes a false allegation against you, in future you will automatically be presumed guilty (we all know that in practice this happens anyway, but currently evidence is still usually required), if you cannot prove that it didn’t happen, you are doomed!

Tony Blair’s belief that the rights of an accused person are less important than those of a ‘law-abiding’ citizen is a ridiculous self-defeating statement.

You cannot promote the rights of a ‘law-abiding’ citizen as being paramount unless you also protect that same individuals’ right to innocence and their other basic human rights. If you are not doing that, then whose rights are you protecting?

In contrast to what he claims in the closing statements of his speech, Britain’s current Government is disempowering, disabling and removing decision making from the hands of the people.

A ‘Big Brother’ State is now closer than ever before.

Tell us your views, even better, tell Tony Blair!