INTERESTING?...Lots of hysteria today in the newspapers, on tv and radio about Justice Secretary Jack Straw`s decision not to make public the reasons why one of Jamie Bulger`s 10-year old killers has been returned to custody, having been released on licence for some years.
There seems to be a clamour for the information to be made public, but Straw says it is `not in the public interest` for that to happen. So we have a situation whereby there seems to be widespread public interest in the affair but that it is not in the public interest for the public to be told the reasons.
Now, I`m not sure I agree with the clamour, for it seems to me that the fact that Jon Venables, now 27, has been returned to custody following a breach of his licence shows that the system is working and that seems to me to be the most important part in all of this. But I noticed that Jack Straw has today apologised for his `silence` in not disclosing the reasons, saying that there were “very good reasons” for not giving the reasons. Maybe the public interest would die down a bit if the public at least knew the reasons for not disclosing the reasons in the public interest. Seems reasonable, if not very interesting. OK, I`ll move on.
2 comments:
Some rumours are that his new offence is simply getting into a fight which in the big scheme of things isn't too important. But unless the public are told there will always be a suspicion, a fear even, of "what if he's killed another child?" . If that were the case then the decision to let him out on licence would have proved wrong and someone somewhere would have some serious questions to answer. I doubt very much that that is the case, but unless we are told for sure then th doubt will always remain
On the substance os the issue, I agree Wurz. I was just illustrating the `bizarreness` of the public interest being the reason why the reasons for withholding the reasons are apparently in the public interest. As such.
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