The Police and the Law
| Date | 01 January 1952 |
| Published date | 01 January 1952 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X5202500102 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
6
THE
POLICE
JOURNAL
Something definite will have to be done in the immediate future, for
the problem will
not
wait for sufficient parks off the highway to be
provided. Could not more advantage be taken of side
roads?
House-
holders would be inconvenienced,
but
the community in general would
benefit. Pending the provision of ample car-parking space we feel
that all except the main traffic routes should be considered from this
point of view.
If
such streets were clearly indicated as parking streets,
motorists would be more likely to avoid streets not so marked and the
intolerable congestion of the principal streets of our busy towns would
be relieved.
The
risk of accidents which is always associated with
parked vehicles would not be increased ; it would merely be transferred
from one place to another.
The
Police and the Law
THE
RIGHT
OF THE
POLICE
TO REQUIRE PRODUCTION OF
IDENTITY
CARDS
IT will be useful to set out certain of the actual words used by the
Lord
Chief Justice in the specially constituted Divisional Court which,
in the case of Willcock v. Muckle
(1951,
2
All
E.R.
367), upheld the
right of the Police to require production of identity cards. All seven
members of the Court agreed with the following observations of his
Lordship:
"The
Court wishes to express its emphatic approval of the
way the justices dealt with this case by granting an absolute discharge
for, although the Police may have powers, it does not follow that they
ought to exercise
them
on all occasions or as a matter of routine.
From
what we have been told by counsel for the respondent it is obvious that
the Police now, as a matter of routine, demand the production of
national registration identity cards whenever they stop or interrogate
amotorist for whatever cause. Of course, if they are looking for a stolen
car or have reason to believe that aparticular motorist is engaged in
committing a crime, that is one thing,
but
to demand anational registra-
tion identity card from all and sundry, for instance, from a lady who
may leave her car outside a shop longer than she should, or some trivial
matter of
that
sort, is wholly unreasonable.
This
Act was passed for
security purposes, and not for the purposes for which, apparently, it is
now sought to be used.
To
use Acts of Parliament, passed for particular
purposes during war, in times when the war is past, except
that
technic-
ally a state of war exists, tends to
turn
law-abiding subjects into law-
breakers, which is a most undesirable state of affairs. Further, in this
country we have always prided ourselves on the good feeling that
exists between the Police and the public and such action tends to make
the people resentful of the acts of the Police and inclines
them
to
obstruct the Police instead of to assist them."
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