I am often struck how the cost of bad behaviour can be quite disproportionate to the benefit to the perpetrator. The classic example is corruption. An individual wants a “commission” of X in return for “facilitating” a contract worth 10X or 100X. It would often have been far cheaper for the state just to pay [...]
Unsurprisingly, Julian Assange lost his case against extradition in the High Court today. The judgment is not yet on the High Court site, but a copy is available on scribd.com (case CO/1925/2011). His problem is that the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) offers almost no scope for challenge. That is the whole idea. All the countries [...]
[Published 19 Oct 2011 and open for comments until 6 Jan 12, about 80pp] This is the fall-out from the Binyam Mohamed court cases, on which I wrote several articles (eg here, here and here). The consultation is on the cabinet office website here, rather than on the Dept of Justice website as you might [...]
I had not focussed on the incest issue here until some recent news stories. In fact, I had not really thought much at all about sperm donation. Where is the line between donation and infidelity? If the next door neighbour’s husband is infertile, but she wants children, does making love to her count as sperm [...]
I found this a most curious case. Michele Selby, a police constable in the Strathclyde force, was sentenced to one year in prison last week for “attempting to defeat the ends of justice” by not arresting a burglar. She and another PC were patrolling in Kirkintilloch towards the end of the night shift. [Moon River [...]
