Rigpig wrote:
However, its the moral corrosion and respect erosion element I'm centering in on just now.
If we are challenging something as serious as the current regime of enforcement of speed limits then I want to be absolutely certain in my own mind that we're doing so for the right reasons and have left no stone unturned.
Its very easy, when pursuing a single issue, to lose sight of the bigger picture and the effect ones actions in one domain might have in another.
Equally, any system of law enforcement must have due regard for "the bigger picture and the effect [that] actions in one domain might have in another"; and that's exactly what the present system fails to do.
The present system of speed enforcement subverts due process. The following is an extract from the defence arguments I prepared for a speeding case which I defended last year.
Quote:
45. The burden of due process - the requirement to gather evidence, identify and interview witnesses, collate statements and exhibits, prepare and present the case in court, all to the applicable evidential and procedural standards - operates as a natural tensioner in all areas of law, both criminal law and civil law. This tension tends to ensure that legal proceedings are only commenced and continued where the damage suffered is sufficently serious to justify the financial and other costs of discharging the due process burden. The tension of due process clearly applies to civil law but it also applies to criminal law where the prosecution must judge, in any given case, whether the seriousness of the offence, the cost and difficulty of bringing the case to trial and the prospects of securing conviction justify bringing criminal proceedings in the public interest.
46. In the case of camera detected speeding offences, which represent the vast majority of offences to which section 12 is liable to be applied, there is no consideration, either before proceedings are initiated (i.e. before the notice of intended prosecution is issued), or at any time before the case is brought to trial, of the relative seriousness of the offence nor of the public interest.
47. So, In the case of camera detected speed enforcement, there is no tension that regulates the scale of enforcement. In fact the opposite is true. The creation of safety partnerships (which now exist in almost all constabulary regions) has given rise to entirely new bureaucratic institutions, largely unaccountable to the public (and certainly not directly accountable), whose primary activity is the detection of speeding offences and enforcement of related law.
48. Any observer of bureaucracies could not fail to conclude that it
is in their nature to seek to perpetuate and enlarge themselves. There is no reason to think that safety partnerships should be an exception.
49. It is estimated by police that the number of speeding "events" (an "event" being an occasion on which a vehicle exceeds a posted limit) that occur every day is in the order of ten million. That is in excess of 3.5 billion offences per annum. With this vast pool of offences at which to aim, and no constraint of due process that would tend to require resources to be focussed on the more serious offences, it is impossible to think that the camera speed enforcement industry, and with it the number of offences detected and enforced, will not continue to grow at the rate seen over recent years.
50. These safety partnerships are entirely funded from fines; not, it must be noted, all fines, but only those paid by way of fixed penalty. Thus this entire speed enforcement industry relies for its existence on the propensity of persons accused of an offence to waive their right to due process. In that regard, it is revealing to note, by way of illustration of the way in which the funding system for safety partnerships will permit and encourage management thinking to develop, the following extract from the minutes of a meeting of the Cambridgeshire Safety Camera Partnership Steering Group (emphasis added): "BM asked if the ways that people can pay fines are being looked at. AC said it is important to look at what works best for our area. MW said the magistrates service is looking at initiatives, such as cold calling, which would 'push' people down the line of paying their conditional offers".
51. Further, it is clear that the prosecution and court systems would be unable to process the offences presently dealt with by way of fixed penalty if the persons accused did exercise their right to due process. Table A shows that 2.3 million motor vehicle related offences were dealt with in court proceedings in 2003. That number is neither exceptionally high nor low; it is very similar to that applicable in each of the preceding ten years. There can be little doubt that the prosecution and court systems are already hard pressed to deal with the existing volume of motoring and non-motoring offences. The burden of dealing with an additional 1.7 million speeding offences would be, quite clearly, insupportable.
52. Thus the threat of court proceedings that is implicit in the conditional offer of fixed penalty enforcement system is, in actuality, an empty one. The enforcement authorities would be simply unable to carry out the threat in a significant proportion of cases. However, they implicitly rely on the fact that it can be carried out in a small number of individual cases in order to persuade those accused of an offence to waive their right to due process.
[edited to add]
In brief, what I am arguing above is that there is an implicit immorality, that is being practised by the state, in establishing and maintaining a system of detection and prosecution of these offences (which the highest courts in the country have accepted infringes one of our most fundamental rights, the privilege against self-incrimination) on a scale that is disproportionate to the harm caused by or resulting from the commission of those offences.
If the efficacy of mass speed enforcement was incontrovertible (which it incontrovertibly isn't) there would still remain the moral issue of whether the end justifies the means. As it is, the balance of immorality, in my opinion, lies overwhelmingly on the side of the enforcement system.
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