Kill the Bill

[Nemo]

More to the point, with the current courts backlog you might spend the rest of your life awaiting trial. That feels like a far bigger justice issue than sentencing guidelines.

[4D]

Ah.

So you might only get a suspended sentence for protesting peacefully? Well that makes it OK then!

Let's wait and see eh?

[Batch]

Ah.

So you might only get a suspended sentence for protesting peacefully? Well that makes it OK then!

Let's wait and see eh?

no it's too late then

[Flashheart]

Let's wait and see eh?

I can't help but feel that I'd just be feeding a troll if I did answer. I don't think I'll bother.

[4D]

I can't help but feel that I'd just be feeding a troll if I did answer. I don't think I'll bother.

Ok

[chalkies shorts]

Not everyone with a different opinion is a troll.

[4D]

Only if they think someone is going to get banged up for 10 years for peaceful protesting.

[Flashheart]

Not everyone with a different opinion is a troll.

I didn't say otherwise.

But some are.

[pauld]

How many laws and bills are there where sentences are maxed for those found guilty? A lot of crimes seem to result in a suspended sentence these days. We're still soft, but people like a bit of dramatisation  I suppose.

You've missed the point. 10 years is a maximum sentence, of course it would rarely be applied and in most instances people arrested under this section would be dealt with at a magistrates' court where the maximum is 12 months (as you'll see in the section I quoted if you've read it). But that isn't the point. The point is it acts as a deterrent from people organising peaceful protests in the first place. The right to peaceful protest is recognised as a basic human right in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, widely accepted across the world. We'd be joining dictatorships and authoritarian countries such as Belarus, Myanmar, Russia etc in suppressing that right.

[JBZ]

It occurs to me that basic education on civil and criminal law/procedure should be on the curriculum

[Shrivvy Road]

Not everyone wants to know to be honest.

[Moss]

Not everyone wants to know to be honest.

Wow.

[Legends-Lounge]

Wow.

Why wow? He’s right, you may, I may but not everyone does.

I’m very uneasy about it which may come as a surprise but don’t be fooled into thinking I blindly accept everything a conservative government does or equally detest everything a Labour government does.

On a similar vein, someone told me they were voting to stay in the EU club because and I quote, ‘they all have the same currency and it makes it easier on my pocket not having to keep changing my money every time I go on holiday’. That is just the way it is I’m afraid.
 

[pauld]

Why wow? He’s right, you may, I may but not everyone does.

Lots of people don't. And there's a good argument to say people should be able to get on with their lives and ignore politics safe in the knowledge that actually things will stay pretty much the same. But there's an even better argument that citizens have to be if not actively engaged in democracy*, then at least alert to threats to it, or run the risk that democracy is silently eroded from under them. It's bills like this, and govts like this, unfortunately that make the latter argument more compelling.


*Voting every 5 years is not being *actively* engaged in democracy

[chalkies shorts]

A lot of people don't give a fuck about politics and a lot more people don't give a fuck about this bill. Their lives are largely unaffected or they ensure they're largely unaffected by either.
Good for them. Thats probably the life to lead.