alt Hacker NewsIn the UK the vast majority of prosecutions are made by the Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS are civil servants and, unlike in the US where they elect the guy emptying the trash, the crossing guards and the receptionist, these are just career lawyers.
Most importantly here, the CPS has a "Test" https://www.cps.gov.uk/publication/code-crown-prosecutors#se... to tell them whether they should prosecute people. This is going to weed out a whole lot of the worst examples you'll see in the US.
You may remember Horizon not so long back, which was a gross misscarriage of justice in which large numbers of people who effectively worked for the Post Office were accused of crimes, in some cases jailed and even in a few cases committed suicide. Horizon is exceptional because, since mail was historically very important, the Post Office actually did have the same power as a Crown Prosecutor. Those cases were still sometimes really the fault of the CPS (not least because the CPS has a legal right to just seize control of, and then terminate a prosecution if they believe it would be prudent to do so) but are exceptional because most organisations could not have done this even if they wanted to try it.
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This is kind of true. What is unusual about the Post Office is that they have exceptional investigatory powers but anyone can bring a prosecution in the UK.
And it is an important freedom. If the state is declining to prosecute its own, citizens should be able to.
In my view the biggest problem is the credulity of the courts, who are inclined to believe evidence from corporate officers by default, and often refuse efforts to challenge it. The late Ross Anderson documented many cases from the 1990s onwards of people being convicted on bullshit technical evidence.
Maybe the CPS would have seen through it if they had conducted the prosecutions, but I don't think that's obviously true.
> In the UK the vast majority of prosecutions are made by the Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS are civil servants and, unlike in the US where they elect the guy emptying the trash, the crossing guards and the receptionist, these are just career lawyers.
Where did you get the idea that what you're saying is accurate about the US?
In the US most prosecutors are not elected, they are also civil servants and career lawyers. Their boss, a County or State Attorney, typically is elected, but they rarely prosecute cases.
I've also never elected a garbage man, crossing guard, or a receptionist in my life, but I've only been voting for almost 30 years now. Maybe it'll come up soon.