Popping on my tin hat, may I respectfully suggest this: Before any of us form a view, angry or otherwise, on the government’s decision not to seek a judicial review of the Parole Board’s decision to release Worboys, we should ask ourselves the following questions: [THREAD]
1. Do we know the contents of the legal advice that Justice Secretary David Gauke received before making his decision?
2. Have we seen the dossier of materials upon which the Parole Board made its decision?
3. Have we seen the reasons for the Parole Board’s decision?
4. Do we know the full details of the process that was followed, and the full details of the process that *should* be followed, in such cases?
If the answer to any of the above is “No”, we’re probably not ideally placed to offer an informed criticism of David Gauke’s decision. That’s not to say the decision *is* correct; simply that we lack the information to form a view.
There is still plenty about this case to be justly angry about: the secrecy of the Parole Board (which the Parole Board has asked uninterested governments to reform); the appallingly botched investigations by the police; a criminal sentencing culture that misleads the public.
You can add the observation that 8 years in custody is insufficiently punitive to reflect the seriousness of a campaign of predatory sexual offending. All and any of these, and other aspects I’ve omitted to mention, give rise to legitimate grievances over the way we do justice.
If the JR that Sadiq Khan is purporting to instigate (and I’d be interested also to see the legal advice he has received on this) succeeds, it might be said in future that David Gauke’s decision was wrong. But we’re a long way off that.
As it stands, to attack a politician for a legal decision made following receipt of legal advice, relating to a separate legal decision the details of which we simply don’t know, doesn’t really strike me as fair play.
Now I’m not used to defending Lord Chancellors for taking principled decisions in the face of populist posturing, so I am going to take a lie down. If I’m tannoyed to court, nudge me. [ENDS]
What might assist public understanding, of course, is if Mr Gauke chose to voluntarily publish the legal advice he received. Ministers are loath to do so for obvious reasons, but in cases such as this it might be considered appropriate. Just a thought.
