The Guardian today carries an interview with the DPP, Keir Starmer – well worth reading of course, though it’s certainly not his first media interview because Clive Coleman spoke to him on the BBC’s Law in Action in the spring. I think it’s a bit depressing that the interviewer seems to think Starmer must be a tremendous chap because he used to be a “human rights lawyer” and that it’s strange he should have agreed to be DPP, as though prosecuting in Britain were similar to working for the Spanish inquisition or the KGB. I wish the media would give up this hilarious Judge John Deed view of law.
The hook on which the interview is hung is of course the interim guidance the DPP is about to issue following the Lords last but perhaps not finest ruling in the Purdy case, guidance which not only doesn’t change the law, but (whatever Keir Starmer may be saying) can’t really be “clarifying the law”, either – a usefully vague phrase, that, for people who want the law either to be changed or applied in a way that suits them. What the guidance will do is clarify the DPP’s policy on prosecuting those suspected of breaking the law on assisted suicide, a law I’d like to see really changed.
One other point worth noting is the way Starmer clearly expresses a political view about the Iraq war, and gives a legal view about it too. As a former civil service lawyer myself (which Keir Starmer is now of course) I found this surprising, in the civil service sense of the word. I wouldn’t want to deny him the right to say what he’s said – I think we’re too restrictive about what civil servants can and can’t say or write publicly, and could usefully ease up. Equally, I can live with the existing position whereby civil servants are supposed to avoid being publicly identified with views on matters of political controversy. What does annoy me, though, is that this interview reveals the truth: that those civil servants who are powerful and have media profiles can afford to ignore the rules, whereas an ordinary civil servant who had, say, commented on a blog arguing against the Iraq war, would probably be disciplined.
Keir Starmer’s commitment to fairness and human rights will really show if he applies the same rules on impartiality and freedom of expression to his CPS staff as he does to himself.
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