The Section 172 Debate (Right of Silence)

I have just had another couple of clients on the phone complaining about their lack of a right of silence in speeding cases. I am just a lawyer and I deal with the law the way it is but if people feel strongly about this area they should be banging on to their MP and MSP about it.

Whether you regard Idris Francis as an arrogant idiot or a defender of justice you will no doubt have heard of his case. Everyday we are asked "What shall I do? I've received a Notice of Intended Prosecution and it says I must answer" Well, you must. Let's not beat about the bush, what you want to do is to throw the bloody notice in the bin and forget about it but you know that it won't go away, so easily.

You may have broken the law and your wake up call is that you now have less rights than a murder suspect. A murder suspect or indeed a suspect in relation to any other crime need not make a statement that may incriminate himself.

Why are drivers a breed apart? It would seem that our government, here and in Europe consider that you have earned the right to drive by passing a test and now you are entitled to drive under a contract called Road Traffic legislation. One of the fundamental pieces of that legislation is the Road Traffic Act 1988 and section 172 of that Act imposes a duty to give information in certain circumstances. Those circumstances tend to be speeding offences and with the profusion of speed cameras around (More in the UK than any other country in Europe) we know how important our government considers this issue to be.

Personally I consider the Idris Francis characters of our country to be principled people who will not allow the State to ride roughshod over our basic human rights. Of course there is a strong argument that upholds the principle that the State should require certain human rights to be set aside in the greater interest of society, but who, where and why is that line drawn.
If it is ok for the state to remove a right of silence with a piece of legislation (Road Traffic Act) is it ok for the State to remove that right in more serious cases such as murder?
Should murder suspects have a right to silence or should they be compelled to comment? Presently we have a situation that means if a murder suspect does not make a comment or insists upon his right of silence this can be commented upon at trial but this is not the same as removing the right of silence completely.
We might expect that a terrorist suspect will have less rights than the usual suspect as the consequences of one terrorist act are so vast. Since this risk to society is higher then society cannot be as free as desired. I think most people understand the arguments when it comes to high level crime but tend to feel that motorists are hammered with sentences that are really disproportionate to the crime committed. Is it right that a man should lose his licence, job mortgage and who knows what else because he has a dozen penalty points on his licence over the course of three years? How can that really reflect the nature of the offence.
Many people can accept that speeding can be dangerous and should be punished but when we look around Europe we see our neighbours imposing fines not hammering penalty points into the coffins of drivers.