3:02pm Monday 8th February 2010
YOU correctly report that, in 2008, 17 senior judges at the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the policy of keeping the DNA of innocent people “could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society”.
Well, firstly, “necessary” is presumably just a diplomatic way of saying “acceptable”.
Secondly, there is no point in a nation signing up to a higher authority if a given government – let alone constabulary – can simply overrule its pronouncements.
Thirdly, it could be perversely argued that a country which still boasts scores of hereditary law-making peers ennobles other unelected characters so that they may assume (sometimes high) ministerial office. And our crude, outmoded, first-past-the-post electoral system is anything but democratic.
Fourthly, it is self-evidently preposterous and repugnant that whether or not one is to be found on the DNA database could depend on the shortcomings, or whims, of some ignorant, half-baked or sick little constable and his or her maybe scarcely-better immediate seniors. There are plenty of alleged cases where individuals have been arrested uniquely or chiefly to ensure inclusion on the list.
Fifthly, of course the lack of clarification and consistency, specifically highlighted in your article is considerable cause for concern, but the ‘postcard lottery’ farce is eclipsed by the unsound general principle.
Those on the records who are ‘de iure’ innocent, are doubtless sometimes ‘de facto’ guilty of some crime, or some of their relatives may be. But the tendency towards actual or expedient presumption of culpability runs counter to all that this land is supposed to stand for – in a way, incidentally, that no-jury trials in which ‘nobbling’ would otherwise have been virtually inevitable, does not.
Finally, where does this arbitrary six-year retention limit spring from and what guarantee is there that it will be adhered to?
Still, perhaps I should not be directing these remarks to a publication which considers it appropriate to refer to people solely by their surname just because they have been formally accused of an offence, possibly by bigger crooks than they.
DAVID DIMENT, Riverside Court, Oxford,
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