[pibaker]

It's less about accuracy and more about who gets the blame when mistakes happen. And computers are excellent scapegoats for this kind of situations because when mistakes happen, you can just throw your hands up and say, well, the computer sucks, and no actual human will bear any consequences. It's not like the computer is going to fight back or anything.

Since this is the UK, see also the entire post office scandal. It was often blamed on a faulty accounting software developed by Fujitsu, even though the software put no one in jail. Human prosecutors did. But of course the British state apparatus will not admit to that, so all we hear is this story about software errors that conveniently ignores any human involvement in the process.

[tialaramex]

Actually the humans come up all the time. The problem was that as always somehow highly paid executives conveniently don't know anything and had no idea anything was happening. Several Post Office executives testified that they had no idea they were ordering people to be prosecuted, they were just completely incompetent and signed whatever was put in front of them, while being paid a huge sum of money. If they received specific documentation telling them Horizon was busted and mustn't be relied on they mislaid it, and oops, forgot to take any action as a result.

Likewise politicians supervising those executives somehow conveniently didn't ask any questions, forgot what they'd been told and generally had no idea what was happening.

Some of the crimes so often committed by executives who walk free needs to delete Mens Rea so that when executives say they had no idea the prosecutor doesn't even skip a beat because it doesn't matter. For comparison in UK criminal law if you have sex with a ten year old, and you try to argue† you thought they were of age and also you had their consent, the prosecutors will move on because you haven't actually defended yourself at all, sex with the ten year old was rape by definition, the fact is the crime, what you believed about it was irrelevant, you're done.

† If you have defence counsel they'll strongly urge you not to try this because it can't work

[LtWorf]

And you believe it?

[tialaramex]

Of course I don't believe them. But the criminal standard isn't "balance of evidence" it is "beyond a reasonable doubt" and I can't say that I have no doubt she's lying.

Eliminating Mens Rea would solve the problem. If they don't want to go to jail they can try being more competent, or, I expect, they can try not being crooks and what do you know all the crime they supposedly "weren't responsible for" magically stops. Huh.

[spwa4]

In both US and UK immigration law isn't law. It's government edicts. Which means parliament chooses not to have a say and just leaves it 100% in the hands of the executive (Prime minister or president respectively).

Mens rea is beside the point, until the government violates other laws (and enough for famously reluctant to convict the government courts to take notice)

Likewise, proof doesn't matter.