XPost: uk.legal, soc.culture.irish, soc.women   
   XPost: alt.religion.druid   
   From: hex@unseen.ac.am   
      
   GB wrote:   
   > On 21/09/2012 15:49, Norman Wells wrote:   
   >   
   >> There will be no way of persuading them short of criminal sanctions.   
   >> It will have to be imposed either by the courts under the present   
   >> law, or by a change in the existing law if the courts find it   
   >> difficult.  The courts in Germany are already going that way.   
   >   
   > There have only been a couple of cases. The result is that the German   
   > government said that it will take all steps needed (if any!) to make   
   > male circumcision legal.   
      
   The fact remains that it has been held to be an illegal assault,  If the   
   Germans want to change their law in order to make it a legal assault,   
   which would be a very strange abandonment of a sound principle merely   
   for political ends, that's up to them.  There would be an interesting   
   point, however, about whether a law allowing a mutilating assault on a   
   child would be compatible with the European Human Rights Convention.   
      
   >> If a case were to be   
   >> brought in Britain, I have no doubt it would be found to be an   
   >> assault, with the appropriate criminal sanctions applied.  I can see   
   >> no valid defence.   
   >   
   > The courts have not agreed with you in the past, Norm,   
      
   I don't think they've ever been asked to rule on it specifically.   
      
   > but if they   
   > did, the government will have to decide whether to change the law.   
   > They would have to decide between the supposed harm to the boys and   
   > the certain harm to the country through large scale emigration of the   
   > Jewish and Muslim population.  You, of course, may approve of that,   
   > and you would most certainly not be alone, particularly amongst the   
   > denizens of ukl.   
      
   If the courts held that it was a criminal assault, the government would   
   be placed in a difficult position.  Do they decide for financial reasons   
   that some criminal assaults that mutilate defenceless children are   
   perfectly acceptable and should be protected by law, or do they take the   
   principled high ground, as they should, and as the ECHR requires, that   
   they are completely unacceptable and should remain illegal?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)