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Thursday, January 12, 2006

[nilesfunnies] Fwd: That's Telling Them


http://thelawwestofealingbroadway.blogspot.com/2006/01/thats-telling-them.html

I am grateful to solicitor Richard Miller for the following:-

(The Court of Appeal recently had to interpret some of the provisions in
the Criminal Justice Act 2003).

Thursday, 8th December 2005
B E F O R E:
LORD JUSTICE ROSE, MR JUSTICE CRANE, MR JUSTICE OPENSHAW
- - - - - - -
THE CROWN PROSECUTION SERVICE (CLAIMANT) -v- SOUTH EAST SURREY YOUTH
COURT (DEFENDANT)

paragraph 14 of the judgement is a cracker:-

"So, yet again, the courts are faced with a sample of the deeply
confusing provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and the
satellite Statutory Instruments to which it is giving stuttering
birth. The most inviting course for this Court to follow, would be
for its members, having shaken their heads in despair to hold up
their hands and say: "the Holy Grail of rational interpretation is
impossible to find". But it is not for us to desert our judicial
duty, however lamentably others have legislated. But, we find little
comfort or assistance in the historic canons of construction for
determining the will of Parliament which were fashioned in a more
leisurely age and at a time when elegance and clarity of thought and
language were to be found in legislation as a matter of course
rather than exception."

That's judicial frustration for you - beautifully expressed too!