Parliament debating how laws are prosecuted is not a rare event, unless that is, MPs are pondering the role of the country’s most persistent private prosecutor. Alongside its role as a prosecutor, the RSPCA also campaigns for new legislation and changes to the existing laws it is prosecuting under what seems like an increasingly radical agenda. That is why I have sponsored a debate today about their role as a prosecutor to which the Attorney General will respond.
This debate is not about the 95 per cent of the RSPCA’s work directly protecting animals which we all support and applaud, indeed I was a member of the RSPCA for many years. What I want my colleagues to consider carefully is how the Society both investigates and prosecutes criminal cases without the separation between those roles, which has become a fundamental principle of the criminal law in England and Wales since the formation of the Crown Prosecution Service.
I also want them to consider how anybody with a political and commercial agenda can properly apply (as the RSPCA claims it does) the code for crown prosecutors including the evidential and public interest tests.
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