Following on from her [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/04/theresa-may-cat-human-rights-actI'm not making this up[/url speech at the tories' 2011 conference, Theresa May now intends to introduce legislation to ensure [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21489072most foreigners guilty of serious crimes are deported[/url. All I can see is a massive increase in cases going before the ECHR in Strasbourg and a bonanza for HR lawyers.

Mind you, she has already said she'd like to [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15140742scrap the Human Rights Act[/url

Step forward Cherie B'liar', should ease those mortgage repayments!

Personally i think all foreign criminals should be deported to country of origin regardless. If you fear the country you're from so much, don't commit crime in this country, simple.

So, what do we do with people with dual nationality, saw them in half?

Obviously give them a choice of which one of the two countries they belong to, if they refuse then we choose for them.

If they have dual here and somewhere else, then obviously they stay here

If I traveled to a foreign country and committed a serious crime, I would expect to be deported.

I don't see the problem with these proposals.

A Tory suggested them, therefore they must be a bad idea.

I think you'd be severely disappointed then to find that you'd probably be tried and incarcerated in that foreign country rather than deported.

Labour have pressed for legislation too according the BBC article.

But yes, 'Tory Policy = Automatically Bad'.

Not automatically bad, just often not thought through correctly with attention to detail or consideration for all aspects and effects, we have had government by soundbites for far too long, of all colours.

Sentencing guidance was issued last year to judges. May is unhappy that some judges appear not to have followed her guidance, so now she proposes new primary legislation. Completely ignoring the fact that no two cases are the same, especially in regard to the personal circumstances of defendants. This is a proposal to interfere with the independence of the judiciary and is bound to end in the drafting and implimentation of even worse law.

There will be two outcomes:

1) more cases will end up at Strasbourg, with all the associated costs and time delays

2) the government can add the judiciary to the long list of professions, including teachers, nurses, doctors & surgeons, that they have managed to alienate through their dogmatic attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator

A bit like Brown's decision to scrap the 10% tax rate!!

Even these pesky reds make bad decisions?

You missed the bit where I mentioned "of all colours" then, the bit right at the end...

...and to introduce it in the first place.......and Ed now having a great new idea... to introduce a 10p tax rate! That's such a great election swinging idea, one to really get the UK going forward, the sort of big idea that only a great statesman could conceive.

It is the role of the judiciary to implement the law not make it - no wonder many are confused by the disparity in sentencing for very similar offences. Judges are after all public servants who should abide by the rules laid out by their employers like the rest of us or are they - as they seem to think - above the legal process?

Thanks for confirming that the legal system can be safely added to the long and ever increasing list of subjects you appear to be completely clueless about

Oh. My. Word.

Did you really write that?

Anyone who gets the chance should go and spend a day watching sentencing hearings at a court. Very enlightening as to the reasons for disparities in sentencing, varying from individual prior records, support from family and friends and the whole demanour and attitude of defendants in court.

My experience greatly improved my almost completely uneducated view of judges, and I for one am very worried by any attempt by politicians to impose mandatory sentencing for specific crimes.

Indeed. In lots of places you'd be tried and found guilty without proper legal representation and then face the firing squad.

Advice to immigrants worried that they may commit a crime while in the UK which will result in being deported.

Bring a cat

Let's dissect this a little - given you have such a high opinion of your knowledge:

1. Who pays the judges?
2. What is the role of a judge?

Two easy ones for you to get to grips with?

There's a PDF floating around on t'interweb called "The Bench Book", its the sentencing guidelines for magistrates, not judges to be sure but after reading the guidelines to what a magistrate has to take into consideration for the fairly minor offences that they are allowed to judge on, then you may appreciate what sort of task a High Court Judge has when considering a far more complex case, and hence why, in your eyes, on the limited amount of information that is generally reported on, you assume that High Court judges make it up as they go along, there are guidelines, not set rules, and they are open to interpretation and where too lenient or too harsh are open to review and appeal - the system works without fekkin politicians playing at the game as well.

We live in and under English Law, this is not Burma.

Your original comment exhibited an alarming degree of ignorance of the legal processes of this country, this latest one only compounds that. But I will answer your questions:

1) The taxpayer

2) To apply the law.

As fas as 2) is concerned, this does not mean second guessing what a Home Secretary may have thought he/she meant to happen when the law was drafted and enacted. Poorly drafted laws invariably lead to bad justice.

You could do worse than read a little about Baroness Helena Kennedy QC

So you would accept my comments about them being public servants and implementing the due legal process to be correct?

We at last getting somewhere - I agree re poorly drafted legislation but that is where judicial law comes in? At the end of the day legislation goes through numerous amendments before implimentation with advice from a host a experienced legal bods to advise - if it still wrong after all that I am not sure what can be done.