Today Programme: Should errant fathers have their passports confiscated?
Monday, 24 December 2007, 7.50 am
BBC Radio 4, Today Programme
Errant fathers who refuse to take financial responsibility for their children will have their passports confiscated - that's if the new Child Maintenance Bill, currently going through parliament, reaches the statute book. But, the proposal has horrified the legal establishment - Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice, and two former attorney generals Lord Morris and Lord Lyell have criticised the move to bypass the courts.
Lord Lyell : " If the matter goes before the court the court can decide it fairly - but, to give it to the executive in this way is quite wrong, probably unconstitutional and quite contrary to what Gordon Brown said he'd do, in his very first statement, where he said he'd give back to parliament executive powers."
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