3 ms·

If the government could find a way to make it work for the homosexual activity convictions, I'm sure they can find a way for this miscarriage of justice as well

If the government could find a way to make it work for the homosexual activity convictions, I'm sure they can find a way for this miscarriage of justice as well. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/04/past-convictions-for-homosexual-activity-to-be-wiped-from-records-patel-to-announce https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/04/past-convictio...

razakel 3y ago
The difference being we decided that being gay shouldn't be a crime and never should have been. Defrauding public institutions is quite a different kettle of fish. There will be people convicted who really did have their hands in the till.
- Karellen 3y ago
  > There will be people convicted who really did have their hands in the till. Maybe, but if any of the evidence used to convict them came from the Horizon system, which has been proven to be flawed and unreliable, then IMO the verdict is still unsupportable. If there is any reason to suspect someone of actually having their hands in the till over the Horizon period, I would still be entirely in favour of requiring that they be immediately set free, and for prosecutors to have to bring an entirely new trial, from scratch. And any jail time resulting from new guilty verdicts to be reduced by time served from the original conviction.
pipes 3y ago
That's a very good point.
makomk 3y ago
I don't think that poses the same problems for judicial independence because the courts were correctly applying the law at the time - it's just that we've now decided that law was morally wrong - and of course it's always been Parliament's job to set the laws. However, in this case there's no dispute that defraudingg the Post Office out of large sums of money should be a crime, the problem is the courts' factual findings that lead them to rule that specific people had done so.
deleted 3y ago
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razakel 3y ago

The difference being we decided that being gay shouldn't be a crime and never should have been. Defrauding public institutions is quite a different kettle of fish. There will be people convicted who really did have their hands in the till.

Karellen 3y ago
> There will be people convicted who really did have their hands in the till. Maybe, but if any of the evidence used to convict them came from the Horizon system, which has been proven to be flawed and unreliable, then IMO the verdict is still unsupportable. If there is any reason to suspect someone of actually having their hands in the till over the Horizon period, I would still be entirely in favour of requiring that they be immediately set free, and for prosecutors to have to bring an entirely new trial, from scratch. And any jail time resulting from new guilty verdicts to be reduced by time served from the original conviction.

pipes 3y ago

That's a very good point.

makomk 3y ago

I don't think that poses the same problems for judicial independence because the courts were correctly applying the law at the time - it's just that we've now decided that law was morally wrong - and of course it's always been Parliament's job to set the laws. However, in this case there's no dispute that defraudingg the Post Office out of large sums of money should be a crime, the problem is the courts' factual findings that lead them to rule that specific people had done so.

deleted 3y ago

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