So today I found out...

[sledger]

...that in the UK a court order can be made against you to have material (i.e. organs etc.) removed from your body against your will if it is believed to be in the public interest (e.g. so that medical research can be undertaken on your kidneys or whatever etc.)

Dodgy AF.

 

[TNT]

Dead and alive?.

 

[sledger]

Yeah. Rule applies to both live and dead bodies as I understand it.

 

[TNT]

Yeah. Rule applies to both live and dead bodies as I understand it.

Dead I understand, but alive, I guess in extreme circumstances to trace diseases or similar (samples for testing).

 

[Bijed]

Yeah. Rule applies to both live and dead bodies as I understand it.

Wait, it applies to live bodies? Wtf?!

 

[hendrix]

...that in the UK a court order can be made against you to have material (i.e. organs etc.) removed from your body against your will if it is believed to be in the public interest (e.g. so that medical research can be undertaken on your kidneys or whatever etc.)

Dodgy AF.

I think this'd be specifically in the case of communicable diseases e.g. if a super aggressive for of TB were found or something.

Still, it's frightening.

 

[andmark]

When you read it, did it have some sort of context? I can only guess it's something to do with drugs or maybe terrorism (although the latter might be a stretch of the imagination). Still though, scary stuff.

 

[sledger]

Yeah, the official government guidance (heh) is that this power should only be used in extreme circumstances, such as that which TNT suggested above. But still...

 

[harsh.ag]

Eh. At some level, in extreme enough circumstances, no rights exist.

 

[sledger]

Depends on your conception of rights.

 

[Uppercut]

...that in the UK a court order can be made against you to have material (i.e. organs etc.) removed from your body against your will if it is believed to be in the public interest (e.g. so that medical research can be undertaken on your kidneys or whatever etc.)

Dodgy AF.

So I have a question. My first response is "wtf that's shocking", but when I think about it more, I feel like whether this is legal or not makes almost no difference whatsoever. In circumstances where the government has abused its powers (e.g. the mass internment and torture in Northern Ireland, Hillsborough) it just obfuscates, covers stuff up, uses "national security concerns" to prevent the release of material that would allow for a fair trial, and launches a series of toothless inquiries and reports in lieu of pursuing justice. The legality of what happened in Northern Ireland is little more than an arcane theoretical question for future academics to debate into the void when anyone who might be held accountable is either long dead or has too much institutional power to put on trial. Hillsborough, maybe one or two people will go down for it this year, 30 years later and with hundreds of survivors and family members having had to exert an obscene amount of effort to even get to this point.

So why does it matter whether this is legal or not?

 

[andmark]

I wonder if the power has been used. As Uppercut says, the UK govt has form in covering up these sort of things, so it's difficult to know, but I would be morbidly intrigued in knowing what it'd be used for.

 

[Uppercut]

So I have a question. My first response is "wtf that's shocking", but when I think about it more, I feel like whether this is legal or not makes almost no difference whatsoever. In circumstances where the government has abused its powers (e.g. the mass internment and torture in Northern Ireland, Hillsborough) it just obfuscates, covers stuff up, uses "national security concerns" to prevent the release of material that would allow for a fair trial, and launches a series of toothless inquiries and reports in lieu of pursuing justice. The legality of what happened in Northern Ireland is little more than an arcane theoretical question for future academics to debate into the void when anyone who might be held accountable is either long dead or has too much institutional power to put on trial. Hillsborough, maybe one or two people will go down for it this year, 30 years later and with hundreds of survivors and family members having had to exert an obscene amount of effort to even get to this point.

So why does it matter whether this is legal or not?

Stating this more succinctly:

For extreme rights violations, the law has repeatedly proven to be an extremely ineffective means of holding the UK government to account. This being so, why does it matter whether extreme rights violations are technically legal or not?

 

[GIMH]

So I have a question. My first response is "wtf that's shocking", but when I think about it more, I feel like whether this is legal or not makes almost no difference whatsoever. In circumstances where the government has abused its powers (e.g. the mass internment and torture in Northern Ireland, Hillsborough) it just obfuscates, covers stuff up, uses "national security concerns" to prevent the release of material that would allow for a fair trial, and launches a series of toothless inquiries and reports in lieu of pursuing justice. The legality of what happened in Northern Ireland is little more than an arcane theoretical question for future academics to debate into the void when anyone who might be held accountable is either long dead or has too much institutional power to put on trial. Hillsborough, maybe one or two people will go down for it this year, 30 years later and with hundreds of survivors and family members having had to exert an obscene amount of effort to even get to this point.

So why does it matter whether this is legal or not?

Indeed. Government can make anything it wants legal. Theft, murder, abduction, so a bit of organ stealing doesn’t surprise me.

 

[sledger]

Stating this more succinctly:

For extreme rights violations, the law has repeatedly proven to be an extremely ineffective means of holding the UK government to account. This being so, why does it matter whether extreme rights violations are technically legal or not?

I guess the answer is that the mechanisms for enforcing rights in the UK are just not strong enough. If we imagine the UK's constitution to be a pyramid of power, political power comes above legal power. Or at least that's the orthodox view anyway.

The courts can enforce and interpret the law, but the law is always written by the politicos, and then re-written when it does not suit them.

A stronger separation of powers would be desirable really.

 

[fredfertang]

...that in the UK a court order can be made against you to have material (i.e. organs etc.) removed from your body against your will if it is believed to be in the public interest (e.g. so that medical research can be undertaken on your kidneys or whatever etc.)

Dodgy AF.

What is the authority for this?

 

[Burgey]

Hopefully they can excise conservatism from people and dispose of it in a dumpster.

 

[Flem274*]

i was thinking about the "would you sacrifice your blood/organs whatever that contain the one true cure and die to save millions from sickness?" scenario the other day and decided i'd feel extremely guilty for the rest of my life if i wussed out.

nice to know the uk government wouldn't give me a choice. a true bastion of freedom.

 

[GIMH]

i was thinking about the "would you sacrifice your blood/organs whatever that contain the one true cure and die to save millions from sickness?" scenario the other day and decided i'd feel extremely guilty for the rest of my life if i wussed out.

nice to know the uk government wouldn't give me a choice. a true bastion of freedom.

2/10

 

[Burgey]

Dead and alive?.