[HN Gopher] The justice system's role in non disclosure of Horiz...
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       The justice system's role in non disclosure of Horizon material
        
       Author : chrisjj
       Score  : 12 points
       Date   : 2024-04-16 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.thejusticegap.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.thejusticegap.com)
        
       | chrisjj wrote:
       | "Dr Andrew Green argues that ... material relating to the Horizon
       | computer system and Fujitsu's role in selling a defective system
       | have been concealed in secret court hearings where Post Office
       | lawyers argued that it would not be in the public interest to
       | disclose it."
        
       | chrisjj wrote:
       | "If this subpostmasters knew precisely how Horizon worked, they
       | might use such knowledge in order to commit crimes or hide the
       | crimes they were already committing, in the view of the Post
       | Office and its investigators. "
        
       | giobox wrote:
       | Interesting the author also suggests that the proposed
       | legislative remedy (passing an Act of Parliament to fix the issue
       | retrospectively instead of the Court appeal process) will allow
       | the government to avoid scrutiny of the evidence they failed to
       | disclose, saving themselves and Fujitsu from further
       | embarassment:
       | 
       | > "The Court of Appeal could probably cope with the burden of
       | overturning the wrongful convictions, given the similar nature of
       | all the cases and the collapse of the prosecution. But appeal
       | procedures might expose how PII hearings were abused to cover up
       | Horizon system defects and failures to remedy them. The proposed
       | exceptional legislation would remove the exposure of
       | embarrassments to the state, the Post Office and Fujitsu. It
       | would remove the legal problem which would be caused by appeal
       | courts being forced to admit evidence which had been concealed by
       | other courts. No doubt the legislative solution would adopt the
       | 'faulty program' explanation, thus foreclosing investigation of
       | other explanations, such as the tampering with Horizon data
       | featured in the ITV drama, which was factual, not fictional."
       | 
       | Personally, I don't think this is the only reason a legislative
       | solution is attractive (there are some positive reasons for
       | considering that solution - speed and efficacy etc, these poor
       | folks have waited a decade), but an interesting point.
        
       | andybak wrote:
       | This intuitively makes a lot of sense and helps explain the more
       | baffling aspects of the case. I'd be happy to call Occam's Razor
       | on this (albeit based on a very cursory reading).
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-16 23:00 UTC)