Theyre saying that the new law where falsely claiming expenses is to be a criminal offence cannot be applied retrospectively. The last time I checked claiming money by deception was already a crime wasn't it?
Only for us mortals. Keep your head down, they are watching us from the satellites and recording our mobile phone conversations.
PS. The difficulty I would imagine would be ........ .... proving 'beyond reasonable doubt' in a court of law that the MP had acted 'dishonestly', rather than 'inadvertently not following laid down procedures/guidance' - the 'dishonest' part is the difficult bit to prove if they claim just to be 'ignorant' of the rules
As someone who's job it is to make the rules... ...how can they claim to be ignorant of them ? I'm not suggesting that they all get charged, but there are some who, it seems, have deliberately set out to claim as much as possible and they are should be charged. PS I can't imagine a jury having a problem convicting them
I thought that ignorence was no defence Theyre all a corrupt set of Barstewards in my opinion and whichever MP decided to 'spoil' his vote the other day should be sacked as he is not doing the job that he is paid to do. He is paid to make decisions and he chose not to make one, ie he chose not to do his job
Ignorantia juris non excusat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_excusat</p> one that allways stuck in my mind when I did the law bit of my exams</p>
RE: I thought that ignorence was no defence Todays decision re MP's expenses just makes the situation even worse - corrupt doesnt begin to describe these barstewards http://www.barnsleyfc.org.uk/bbs/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=144325&posts=1&start=1
I agree with you .............. ....... and I couldn't believe it took so long for it to be mentioned that some of the expense claims should be looked at by the Police, having said that, proving the deliberate fraud/dishonesty in court will not be a cakewalk, that's if any of the cases ever get that far when all the 'strings have been pulled' with the CPS and high ranking coppers by their lawyers and all their friends in high places!