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Wednesday 10 November 2010

Not above the law

Some good news from the courts where the judge has ruled that MPs who cheat on their expenses are no different than any other fraudster or false accounter and should be tried in the plain vanilla bog standard criminal court. The BBC report is here.

Perhaps they will begin to see that they are not above the law, and the same principles apply to the Woolas case.  The High Court judges who declared his election void are not trying to limit his freedom to speak out.  In fact they were quite happy to let Mr Woolas say what he liked, true or untrue, hurtful or kind.  They didn't actually serve any punishment on him for that.

What they did do was to apply a law that had been enacted by Parliament that said that when a candidate lied about an opponent their election should be declared void.  The courts have acted as parliament decreed and the Labour MPs who are crying foul should realise that just like the MPs who will be tried in the usual criminal courts for falsifying their expenses, they are not above the law.

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