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This is fascinating

Leave aside that it\’s about trucks and look at the general principle:

Simon Nicholls, Mr Denby’s lawyer, said: “There appears to be a lacuna in the regulation. There is a general principle that if there is an ambiguity in the law it should be read in favour of the defendant.”

That\’s the bit that Ritchie wants to overturn with his insistence that any ambiguity in the tax law should be read in favour of the prosecution, HMRC.

He\’s nothing if not ambitious, is he, desiring to overturn one of the basics of Common Law.

5 thoughts on “This is fascinating”

  1. A police spokesman said: “Lincolnshire Police will be enforcing the law and stopping the road train to investigate any construction and use offences which may be found.”

    So nothing about reasonable suspicion to stop and search then? And interesting phrasing: use offences which may be found. So the police stop people and then look to see if there’s something on the statute book they can use to get ’em? Why not just prosecute for alarm, harrassment or distress, or outraging public decency. That’s the usual catch-all for doing people when the newspapers goad the police into action.

  2. “However, the Government has refused to allow road trials because it is concerned about undermining the market for rail freight. It also fears they would be unpopular with car drivers.”

    The real reason is the first one; if it were the second, we wouldn’t be paying the equally-unpopular levels of fuel duty and road tax that we are.

  3. Kay Tie

    A slight misreading on your part. The applicable law on what is permissible on the road is known as the “Constructions and Use Regulations”.

    Use here is a noun, not a verb.

  4. Common Law?

    Well our new constitution will soon put paid to all that outdated rubbish.

    Today is December 1st! We are now all citizens of the glorious Union! Hooray!

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