Criminalising Pet Abduction
The government's plans are yet another example of legislating for the sake of legislating.
In last week’s edition of the newsletter I talked about the clampdown on nitrous oxide and how intervention by the government was unlikely to be effective.
A similar point can be made about proposals for a new offence of pet abduction. On the surface it is easy to understand the incentive to pursue this policy. During lockdown the number of people who have got new dogs and other pets has skyrocketed. The price of many breeds has nearly doubled and so there is a greater incentive for thieves to abduct pets from their owners and then sell them.
The problem is that as keen followers of the law you probably already know that so-called pet abduction is already against the law and has another name: theft.
As many commentators pointed out, this change has precious little meaning when there are endemic problems with the justice system that the government has created but now almost refuses to acknowledge.
Once again the government is addressing a problem that doesn’t need to be fixed while ignoring the real issues. There is more concern about political appearances (animal-loving, tough on crime etc.) than there is about actually doing something of practical benefit.
As the Twitter user above points out though, part of the problem is that journalists do not often see or understand these deeper issues and so politicians are rarely held to account. The spin works because it continues to be taken at face value and the tougher questions remain unasked.
In the podcast this week we look at a deportation case with human rights implications. One of the key issues that often crops up is how much of a connection the individual has to the country that they are being deported to. In this case the appellant had not been to Iran since they were a young child and had no real connection to the country. The Supreme Court had to decide if he should be deported or not.
Episode link: http://uklawweekly.com/2021-uksc-30/
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Marcus