Who elected Kier Starmer?

It used to be the case that elected law makers made the law, judges interpreted it, and public prosecutors brought charges on the basis of it.

We've seen how judges increasingly like to interpret what they think the law ought to be, rather than what it is. They do so citing all manner of texts and charters, rather than primary law made by people you voted for.

Now it seems the chief public prosecutor, Keir Starmer, isn't content to leave law making to elected legislators either. He's announced his opposition to changing the law in favour of home owners protecting their property from burglars.

The law regarding intruders "works very well", he pronounced on Radio 4. Why? Well, he continued, CPS officials very often did not bring prosecutions where a householder had used force because it was judged that no jury would consider it unreasonable.

Ponder that carefully. In other words, CPS officials seem to be determining guilt or innocence without cases coming to trial. Isn't it for juries to make that call?

Surely, whatever you think about the rights of homeowners, it is for Parliament to determine the law, and juries to determine guilt, not for Mr Starmer and co? Perhaps if the CPS wasn't second guessing juries, we'd see for ourselves that the law is unsatisfactory, and demand change.

The last century saw a steady erosion of many of the democratic checks and balances that under pinned our justice system; grand juries abolished, trial juries curtailed or scrapped in certain instances (thin end wedge?), quango control over local constabularies, elitist judicial activism.

Perhaps this century requires a counter revolution to make the justice system answer to ordinary law abiding people like it used to? How about elected public prosecutors? It seems to work elsewhere.

Posted on 29 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

The point is that there has been so much bad law passed in the last 12 years that those charged with enforcing the law are, willy-nilly being forced into interpreting the law in an effort to make it work.

Posted on 29 December 2009 10:33 by grumpy old man

You'd think after 12 years in power they might have learned a thing or two about writing legislation. It seems not.
As you say, if the legislation was clear there would be no interpretation to be done.
First 4 years of the new government will partly be spent clearing up the mess this lot leave behind. For starters can we just delete anything with Harriet Harman's name of the bottom of it?

Posted on 29 December 2009 11:03 by PengePanther

Is Kier Starmer a civil servant? If so, why is he making public comments on a political issue? When I was a civil servant this would have been a sacking offence.

The main problem with the present law is the phrase "reasonable force" as it fails to take into account what one might do "in the heat of the moment".
Some time ago, a thief smashed my car window and stole a couple of CDs. At the time I swore that I'd like to see the little **** hung from the nearest lamp post, and if I'd caught him I certainly would have tried to inflict serious harm.
But a few hours later, having spoken to my insurance company and with Autoglass on their way, I reverted to my normal self and felt relieved that there was no other damage.
It is this instant reaction that the law does not recognise. Any fool can sit in judgement well after the event, few have any understanding of what goes on in the victim's mind at the time.

Posted on 29 December 2009 12:18 by English Pensioner

Exactly the same thought crossed my mind as I read in this morning's paper the latest pronunciamento from this hatchet-faced functionary. Who elected him?

And will the next government dispose of him?

Posted on 29 December 2009 12:30 by Shakassoc

A good, sound argument here.

Let us think of Tony Martin, and how these officials treated an old man attacked by a gang of professional thieves at a remote farmhouse. Did the officials show him mercy? They did not. They even kept in prison longer than he otherwise would have been, because he refused to say sorry, refused to be dishonest, refused to play the system. So instead of releasing him after 50% of his sentence, they kept him in until two-thirds time.

We don't want these officials deciding whether to lock us up. Only the politically correct can rely on mercy from these types. What ordinary British man could expect anything but persecution from them?

Posted on 29 December 2009 13:34 by Roger Pearse

Oooo I love the idea of being a 'counter revolutionary'. Where do I sign?

Posted on 29 December 2009 14:00 by Lola

Starmer seems to think that he can make such decisions personally, without reference to any other person or body, and that he was appointed to make ad hoc decisions even where there are likely precedents / case law to be carefully considered.
This man's appointment was purely political - does anyone think that there aren't equally or better qualified people who are apolitical? - and he should be replaced at the earliest time, opportune or not, after the general election.

Posted on 29 December 2009 14:14 by Mike Spilligan

A couple of thoughts: (1) by speaking this way in answer to the views of an elected legislator and aspiring Home Secretary, outside the proper scope of his civil service brief, Keir Starmer is showing subconscious - if not overt - prejudice against the CPS giving a householder the benefit of the doubt in a marginal situation; (2) he is oblivious to what may happen before the CPS get hold of such a case, namely that a householder who had no decision upon whether or not to be a burglary victim is suddenly vulnerable to arrest and charge and all the related humiliation of the criminal justice system. His early removal from the role of head of the CPS cannot come soon enough.

Posted on 29 December 2009 19:16 by David Cooper

There are tens of thousands of cases where the CPS (and other prosecutors) decide whether or not a person should be charged with an offence and thus go before a court. Each decision is made in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors. The Director of Public Prosecutions is responsible for issuing a Code for Crown Prosecutors under section 10 of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, passed under the last Tory administration when the CPS was set up. It's rather an interesting read:
http://www.cps.gov.uk/Publications/docs/code2004english.pdf

I hope your readers, and you, will be reassured after reading it.

Posted on 29 December 2009 21:28 by Julian Parker

"CPS officials very often did not bring prosecutions where a householder had used force because it was judged that no jury would consider it unreasonable."

If a jury would find that reasonable orce was used then the householder hasn't committed a crime. Why does he make it sound like his staff are doing householders a favour.

In fairness to him though if it appears no unreasonable force was used the cases shouldn't get to a jury as the householder should not be charged in the first place.

Posted on 29 December 2009 22:38 by iain c

I fear that ordinary folk are still too comfortable to be interested in issues of personal liberty. While Brown borrows Britain into oblivion, people don't know that the good times are all false, based on lending.

Once the bubble bursts, and the bills start arriving and the resultant austerity, then people will start asking questions. Where did all the money go? Where did all our freedoms go? and so on.

Posted on 30 December 2009 02:49 by Tapestry

If you think elected public prosecutors work well, consider the case of Eliot Spitzer, the self-proclaimed crusader against corruption on Wall Street. He wrecked a considerable number of companies, plunged thousands of New Yorkers into unemployment (about 7,000 alone in the company I worked for), all for the sake of his political career. It was not until he had been elected Governor of New York and his predeliction for prostitutes discovered that it became clear to the public what his motives were. By then it was far too late. We don't need elected prosecutors, we need a government that is competent and honest and will appoint the right people to such offices, not this filthy shower of criminals in charge at the moment.

Posted on 30 December 2009 11:05 by Chas

Douglas, am a regular reader of your blog, not a lawyer, and find most of what you write interesting, inciteful, and what I am looking for in *hopefully* our next government.

However, when you right about our legal system you seem to
become almost rabid. This latest post is an example.

How can we have an informed debate about whether reasonable force is working without hearing from our chief prosecutor. Whether you agree with him or not.

You wrote:
"Ponder that carefully. In other words, CPS officials seem to be determining guilt or innocence without cases coming to trial. Isn't it for juries to make that call?"

What were you thinking? It is the job of the CPS to chose (usually) not to
prosecute if there is less than a 50/50 chance of winning. Taking your argument to its logical conclusion then the police would charge everyone they arrest and the CPS would prosecute every case sent to them. That would be a huge waste
of my taxes.

Our Judges ( generally ) do a very good ( and difficiult ) job. They have to
balance sometimes a large number of conflicting statutes and use principles
from common law and precedent to do so. This is how we get predictable law.
Perhaps you should look closer to home, at bad statutes, particularly those
written in the last twelve years.

Finally, no I don't want elected public prosecutors. I don't won't prosecutions
made for party political reasons, nor because it will be popular with the
public. But because it is the right thing to do. And these people should then
be answerable to parliament.

Posted on 30 December 2009 13:41 by ikh

Its all been handed over to people like this. Its shocking he should be sacked for gross misconduct.

Posted on 30 December 2009 14:31 by Johnny Norfolk

"How about elected public prosecutors?"

How about an elected Prime Minister?

Posted on 30 December 2009 14:41 by Bob

Unless you are labouring under the misapprehension that the CPS has the power to convict, your complaint seems to be that the CPS is usurping juries by filtering out weak cases. Are you quite sure you've thought this through?

Posted on 30 December 2009 15:42 by Jimmy

He has form. If memory serves he publically decided that assisted suicide wouldn't be prosecuted well before parliament considered the matter.

Sack him and appoint someone who realises that they are a servant and not a master.

Posted on 30 December 2009 16:46 by Pete Wass

Couldn't agree more about 'Keir' Starmer - I wonder if his Christian name is indicative of his political inheritance - but he is onl following in the loquacious footsteps of the former LCJ, who constantly (ab)used his position as a platform from which to promulgate his own views, a position I regard as indefensible in a public servant, no mattr how senior.

However, moving on, I'm astonished that neither Douglas, or any of the other people commenting on this post do not know of the stance adopted by the CPS vis-a-vis the prosecutionof offenders.

For the uninitiated, that body of lawyers has assumed a degree of omnipotence unparallelled in the public sector. Their lawyers - no matter how junior - are the sole arbiters as to whether a given suspect should be charged at all and if so, with what offences. In practice, this all too frequently means that they choose the course of least resistance, and opt to charge defendants with offences somewhat less serious than the evidence would often support. And why do they do this?

Simple; they, too, are target driven and the more 'guilty' disposals they achieve, the better their figures look when they are inspected and therefore the more efficient they appear. Any concept of achieving 'justice' for the victim is forgotten long before the case reaches court.

Lastly (I know this is all a bit 'green ink'), in my experience, in all but the most serious of cases, CPS lawyers would rather eat their own hands than charge an individual with the thought of allowing a jury to decide on the guilt or innocence of the suspect.

In most cases, they require the equivalent of a video of the crime being committed and a statement from the Pope to even consider 'running' it.

Welcome to my world, Mr Carswell...

Posted on 30 December 2009 17:26 by Inspector Lestrade

THE OTHER SIDE OF ASSISTED SUICIDE
my brother and I 'understood one-another'. When he had a stroke, he gave up. But NHS personnel tricked him into saying he wanted to go into a nursing home, where he spent eight months experiencing (by default) 'cruel and degrading treatment'. I can't help wondering where Keir Starman (indeed - Britain) stands in this? Indicted under Human Rights?

Posted on 30 December 2009 19:19 by Barrie Singleton

I cannot believe that the CPS and this man Kier Starmer would take a decision not to prosecute the officer who hit and knocked that G20 man Thomlinson to the ground...It was caught on video and 100 yards further up the road he collapsed and died and 2 independent doctors ruled he had died as a result of internal bleeding. This ruling undermines the justice system in this country and makes it look like a bent corrupt practice. This head of the CPS should be sacked and an independent enquiry into this whole case that to me looks like a botched cover up. The police officer should at least should be sacked for assulting this poor man at the very least even if he is not charged with manslaughter.
The CPS look politically led and this case SHOULD be up to a jury to decide and not this guy Kier who in my honest held opinion is coming across like a puppet of the state.

Posted on 22 July 2010 13:19 by Mickey Taylor

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