Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Childrens Czar Tam Baillie’s move to force judges to consider the impact on children before jailing parents falls at Holyrood, it was complete rubbish











Dear All

On the 18th August 2009, I wrote a post called;

‘Tam Baillie, Children's Commissioner needs someone to explain Human Rights to him!’

The reason for this post was that as Children’s Czar Tam Baillie wanted the Scottish Government to buy into a ‘pig in a poke’ concept that because a person had children they shouldn’t get sent to jail.

For someone on circa £75k a year, the idea was dangerous unworkable nonsense being promoted by him, for that money I expect better.

Every so often someone pops up with a stupid idea; “rights” which don’t exist are put forward as having some kind of value in a Court of Law.

In this case, he thought that the rights of the children extend to cover the criminality of the parent.

He based this idea on a ruling in South Africa by Judge Abie Sachs who refused to jail a woman because she has children.

It was dressed up as protecting the human rights of the child but the reality is; it was a subjective whim on the part of the Judge.

A subjective whim!

Baillie said at the time;

“This was a landmark judgment in South Africa of a woman appealing a custodial sentence partly because she had three children".

He added;

"They thought it was an open and shut case but when they looked at the impact on her children, they discovered what they described as a small perforation' which changed their way of thinking."

At the time I said;

If you break the law then you cannot use the human rights of others in order to circumvent justice. That isn’t then a human right, as “rights” are specific to the individual in the Court.

In other words you can’t use the innocent to escape justice.

The Justice Committee at Holyrood is considering amendments to the Criminal Justice and Licensing Act; they have rightly dropped this turkey supported by Tam Baillie.

I am constantly surprised by the number of people who spout about human rights when they don’t have a clue what they are a talking about.

‘I want’ is not a human right.

Perhaps some people should learn the difference between ‘I want’ and ‘I am entitled to’.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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