When newspapers publish rubbish about human rights, they should be investigated by the Press Complaints Commission
Do cabinet ministers expect one another to get their facts straight? Even a Bolivian's pet cat knows the answer to that. No code of conduct, no proper grasp of the Human Rights Act, no Leveson seminar to ponder the frailties: just Theresa May and Ken Clarke having a spat. But it ought to be different when the press writes duff stories about the Act and politicians want them corrected.
Here's the attorney general Dominic Grieve berating the Sun and the Telegraph for two "hysterical untruths" ? that the serial killer Dennis Nilsen was allowed pornography in his cell as a human right (the Sun) and that a suspected car thief trapped on a roof was given a fried chicken takeaway under HRA auspices (the Telegraph). Tosh! says Grieve. Utter tripe. They shouldn't be able to get away with it.
And they wouldn't if ministers would start treating the Press Complaints Commission as a friend of accuracy. The PCC's code on factual reporting is crisp and clear. Its present chair, Baroness Buscombe, is a lawyer who could investigate on the Kentucky fried porn front in an instant, then instruct offending papers to publish a correction. So much better than attorney generals banging helplessly on at Tory conference fringe meetings. So much more effective at curbing future tosh, too.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/09/human-rights-get-pcc-on-the-case-peter-preston
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