Supreme court dismisses police bail ruling appeal

Justices refuse to suspend ruling that triggered crisis over use of police bail, pointing to emergency legislation before parliament The supreme court has dismissed an application from the police to suspend a ruling that triggered a bail crisis, leaving the legal position of 85,000 suspects in doubt. The justices said the situation was unusual and they were not even sure that they had the power to suspend the ruling but they felt the decision by ministers to bring forward emergency legislation meant they should refuse the application. “This application is unusual and it is questionable whether it would be open to the court to grant this relief,” said the supreme court statement. “In any event, however, the judgment was given on 19 May and an application for permission to appeal was made on 21 June. The government has announced its intention to introduce emergency legislation this Thursday, 7 July. In these circumstances, the court has decided that the application should be dismissed.” MPs are expected to approve the emergency legislation then and peers early next week to become law on 12 July. The bill will make clear that time spent on bail will not count towards the 96-hour time limit on pre-charge detention. The Metropolitan police said on Tuesday morning that it had 14,029 people on bail including 5,024 with conditions it could no longer enforce by detaining them. Police House of Commons Alan Travis guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 5, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.