‘Towards the New Authoritarianism’: Giving Section 2 Powers to the Police
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025630 |
| Date | 01 January 1994 |
| Pages | 316-327 |
| Published date | 01 January 1994 |
| Author | Rowan Bosworth‐Davies |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
'Towards
the New
Authoritarianism': Giving
Section
2
Powers
to the
Police
Rowan Bosworth-Davies
Rowan Bosworth-Davies
After reading
for
the Bar
at
the Middle
Temple, the author joined the
Magistrates Courts Service
as
a Clerk
to
the Justices
in
1971.
Ten years service
in
the Metropolitan Police, where as
a
Fraud Squad officer, he studied
at the
Securities and Exchange Commission,
was followed by employment
as
Investigations Manager
at
FIMBRA,
where he obtained first-hand experience
of the timid British regulation philosophy,
a fact which
led
him
to
accept the post
of
Fraud and Financial Investigations
Manager
at
Richards Butler,
an
international law firm
in
1988. In 1993
he
joined Titmuss Sainer & Webb in their
specialist financial investigations unit.
A
Master
of
Arts from Exeter University,
he
is an Honorary Research Fellow
in its
Centre
for
Police and Criminal Justice
Studies and has published widely on
the
subject
of
regulation and financial fraud.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, the author traces the historical
evolution
of the use of
methods
by the
police
and the
executive
to
undermine
the
protective effects
of the
right
to
silence.
He
argues that
the
introduction
of
greater pro-
tections
for
accused persons
in the
pro-
visions
of the
Police and Criminal Evidence
Act
1984 has
resulted
in an
increase
in
costs
of the
administration
of
summary
jurisdiction with
the
commensurate reduc-
tion
in the
numbers
of
persons being
con-
victed.
Hence political initiatives
are
being
undertaken
to
find
an
effective
way to
remove
the
effects
of the
right
to
silence,
contained
in
these protections.
He
examines
the
effects
of the
so-called s.
2
powers
to
compel answers
to
questions,
possessed
by the
Serious Fraud Office
(SFO).
The
paper ends
by
examining
the
proposals
in the
recent Report
of the
Royal
Commission
on
Criminal Justice and argues
that
the
recommendation
to
extend
the
exercise
of
s.
2
powers
to the
police
is
merely another step towards
the
introduc-
tion
of an
increasingly authoritarian regime
of criminal justice.
INTRODUCTION
'My worry is that we tend to legislate
so as to decrease citizens' protection,
not in a great Act of Parliament that
cuts all rights in one fell swoop, but in
a series of
Acts,
each well-intentioned
in its own right, which have the effect
of eroding the civil liberties that have
been built up over centuries.'1
It is doubtful whether Clive Soley could
ever have envisaged just how prescient
his words, in the debate on the introduc-
tion of s. 2 powers for the SFO, would
prove to be. Those powers, which repre-
sent some of the most intrusive provi-
316
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