Assets seized without trial?
The capacity of this government to come up with ideas so bad, so damaging to personal liberty that you just want to scream, is astonishing.
The latest idea to emanate from the Home Office is that drug dealers’ assets should be seized on arrest, rather than on prosecution. Presumably, this suggestion is motivated by the realisation that the ARA’s total lack of success can largely be placed at the feet of due process and equality before the law. Having spent £65m recovering £23m of criminal assets, it’s understandable that they’re a little ticked off.
It’s easy to see the next bit of the story. Rich criminals with lots of money can afford to hire rich lawyers and accountants to hide their assets and generally screw up the government’s plans. It’s clearly better simply to steal money from people who are arrested, most of whom will not be wealthy and will thus be considerably less likely to be able to defend themselves. Excellent: this will make the job of our friends the ARA much easier. No more need for lawyers and courts, we can simply take the gains of suspects, presumed without evidence to be ill-gotten, and bank them for the common good. Huzzah!
The real agenda here is clear:
The new strategy will widen what can be seized and scrap the 12-year limit within which recovery proceedings must be taken.
The government aims to recover £250m a year from criminals by 2010.
Given that they’re currently running at a £43m deficit, they have to get more money somehow, and robbing the poor is a time-tested way to do it. Smith assures us, graciously, that they will give assets back to anyone found to be “completely innocent”.
Well that’s OK then.
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