Pubdate: Fri, 24 May 2002
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Clare Dyer, legal correspondent
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)

SENIOR LAW LORD WANTS 'POT' TO BE LEGAL

The judge in Britain's highest court called yesterday for cannabis to 
be legalised, putting himself in direct conflict with government 
policy.

Lord Bingham, the senior law lord, said he would legalise the drug, 
adding: "It is stupid having a law which isn't doing what it is there 
for."

In an interview in the Spectator, he described the English criminal 
justice system, which ministers want to make tougher, as already one 
of the most punitive in the world.

He told the magazine's editor, Boris Johnson: "Everybody thinks our 
system is becoming soft and wimpish. In point of fact, it is one of 
the most punitive systems in the world - perhaps not as much as the 
American.

"It's the perception of crime, not the reality. Take an average 
evening's telly viewing; it's all about old women being beaten to 
death and rapes on the towpath." Lord Bingham, a former lord chief 
justice, repeated his desire to set up a US style supreme court, 
removing the top judges from the House of Lords.

"We ought to be seen for what we are, which is judges," he said, 
adding that virtually none of the law lords took part in the debates. 
"The House of Lords should not have non-playing members." The lord 
chancellor, Lord Irvine, insists that a supreme court would be hard 
to house, because it would need an imposing building. But Lord 
Bingham, asked where he would like the supreme court to be, replied: 
"The inland revenue occupies two wings of Somerset House - why not 
throw them out of there? And what is going on at the Scottish Office 
at the moment?"

When asked whether the judges might miss "the best club in London, 
the bars, the libraries", Lord Bingham replied: "I don't speak for a 
united college," implying that some would be loth to relinquish their 
peerages. But speaking for himself, "I don't give a fuck whether 
we're peers or not."
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