Drug Driving in UK Law

The correct approach to be taken to the ‘public interest’ in the balance to be undertaken by a tribunal is to recognise that the public interest in the deportation of foreign criminals has a moveable rather than fixed quality. It is necessary to approach the public interest flexibly, recognising that there will be cases where the person's circumstances in the individual case reduce the legitimate and strong public interest in removal.

In considering that wider question the matters to which a judge will invariably have to have regard to include (1) the extent to which the offender needs treatment for the mental disorder from which the offender suffers, (2) the extent to which the offending is attributable to the mental disorder, (3) the extent to which punishment is required and (4) the protection of the public including the regime for deciding release and the regime after release.

A measure is not “in accordance with the law” if it purports to authorise an exercise of power unconstrained by law. The measure must not therefore confer a discretion so broad that its scope is in practice dependent on the will of those who apply it, rather than on the law itself. Nor should it be couched in terms so vague or so general as to produce substantially the same effect in practice.

In relation to a serious offender, it will often be sensible first to see whether his case involves circumstances of the kind described in Exceptions 1 and 2, both because the circumstances so described set out particularly significant factors bearing upon respect for private life (Exception 1) and respect for family life (Exception 2) and because that may provide a helpful basis on which an assessment can be made whether there are

If, when doing that act, he creates an obvious risk both that property will be destroyed and that the life of another will be endangered and gives no thought to the possibility of there being either risk, the requirements of the subsection are in our judgment clearly satisfied.

Accordingly, in our judgment, for the guidelines laid down in Bilinski in respect of Class A drug importations, there should be substituted the following. Where the weight of the drugs at 100% purity is of the order of 500 grammes or more, sentences of 10 years and upwards are appropriate. And where the weight at 100% purity is of the order of 5 kilogrammes or more, sentences of 14 years and upwards are appropriate.

Certainly, in the view of this Court and in the light of what was said by Lord Justice Scarman in Reid, the Court did not intend to lay down something rigid and exhaustive, In truth what the Court was there saying was that for an excuse to be capable of being a reasonable excuse, it must be an excuse which is related to the capacity of the person concerned to supply a sample, be it of urine or be it of blood.