News from the BBC that the government is considering introducing a specific criminal offence of trespassing on royal premises illustrates how easy it is for politicians to fall into the trap of doing something too hastily that is apparently sensible but is revealed upon closer examination as both daft and dangerous to people's freedoms. We had this over the purple flour bomb in the House of Commons. The whole point about that episode is that it was not dangerous, although it might have been frightening at the time. The same is true of people who clamber over the front of Buckingham Palace. Wearing a Batman costume does not make someone dangerous. As the police pointed out at the time, if they'd thought the man was a terrorist they'd have shot him.
The Tory peer reported to have complained that if an international terrorist got into the Palace, he could only be charged with "non-criminal trespass", has missed the point that what makes a terrorist a terrorist is his terrorist intent. The idea that a terrorist with terrorist intent would be put off making an assault on a royal residence by the knowledge that he might be done for royal trespass is frankly ludicrous. Besides, if there is evidence of such intent, he can be charged with terrorist offences. If there is not, he is not a terrorist.
The proposed new law is, by definition, aimed not at terrorists but at people who have not done anything more harmful than mere trespass. Trespass that is not harmful is not a criminal offence precisely because it is not harmful. So what harm will be prevented by making it one?
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Posted by: Nnatawaat | July 20, 2007 at 05:48 PM