[ExoticPearTree]

> The amended law changed the burden of proof from the prosecution proving the system functioned correctly to the defence proving it didn't, without access to the systems being used to prosecute them.

It is mind boggling that someone thought it is OK to put this into law. What happened to the idea of innocent until proven guilty?

[paulmd]

Seems obvious what happened in context: the government got tired of people “weaseling out” of speeding tickets and breathalyzers (think of the kids!!!) and wrote a law saying the machine right by default unless you had a reason to think otherwise. And of course prosecutors never rest at constructing a novel theory to win cases, so soon enough it was being used in serious cases and not speeding tickets…

(not that it’s fundamentally just with speeding tickets either really! but it's also kind of understandable, you're the 27th person the judge has heard today trying to weasel out of a speeding ticket with the same set of "but the machine could have been wrong!" excuses. And frankly the brits seem to be a lot more "pragmatic" about individual right vs societal ones... the political class there seems to respect the people there exceptionally little even by political-class standards lol)

[HPsquared]

The old "this time it's different" trope strikes again.

[belter]

This is the UK legal system...They have been torturing Julian Assange in front of everybody for years...

[blibble]

the UK legal system has many flaws but the handling of Assange was not one of them

he breached his bail conditions and was rightly jailed for it

[belter]

Julian Assange has been imprisoned for seven years in the UK, for what were charges in the UK of a maximum, and that is a maximum of five years. The UK Legal system regularly releases on bail people accused of murder...yes murder. Assange, was setup in court sitting away from his lawyers, inside the glass-panelled dock of the court, like if he was some modern, Hannibal Lecter, ready to jump and eat the brains of the judge. Using nothing more than the similar psychological tactics, copied from Putin in Russian. Don't even pretend the court is impartial, just make the accused show up in court, with no communication with the lawyers, and inside a cage...

Judges in the UK have been so impartial they publicly made statements of him being a narcissist, not even pretending to even appear impartial. Nils Melzer, the United Nations special rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, concluded after visiting Assange in prison is treatment was nothing more than torture...

Yeah totally normal...for the UK legal system...

[blibble]

> the UK Legal system regularly releases on bail people accused of murder...yes murder.

it turns out there's consequences for jumping bail