International Law

Bribery Bill 2009 clause 12 - some Secret Intelligence Service MI6 or Security Service MI5 exemptions, but why should Local Authority Trading Standards etc. ever be allowed to bribe anyone ?

Another bit of proposed legislation, which will hopefully be lost due to the forthcoming General Election, is the flawed Bribery Bill 2009

For some reason it has been introduced by Jack Straw's Ministry of (In)Justice in the House of Lords.

Note that there are no provisions to strengthen the legislation against corrupt lobbying by Members of the House of Commons or of the House of Lords or of senior Whitehall Sir Humphreys.
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Incredibly, it appears that this Labour Government still intends to make it illegal for, say the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 to bribe a Foreign Government official for information or influence, even where this serves the United Kingdom's national security interests.

Conversely, they are giving any "law enforcement agency", an unfathomable exemption from bribery offences, "for the prevention or detection" of Serious Crime. This includes Local Authority Trading Standards or Environmental Health departments, who are notorious for their lack of expertise and training, when it comes to "simple" Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act use of Covert Human Intelligence Sources.

What conceivable excuse have these "law enforcement agencies", including the Police or HM Revenue and Customs, got for bribing anyone whatsoever ?

Full post as published by Spy Blog on November 20, 2009 (boomark / email).