Why is it that no matter how well intentioned a law is, this government just can’t do it correctly?
For instance: forced marriage legislation.
The aim is very good; to try and cut down on the number of children (or at least very young adults) taken from their home against their will and married to people they don’t want to get married to. To save said children from a lifetime of likely abuse. To try and stop the cycle perpetuating itself. All very worthy.
However, it’s obvious that the law has been badly written, badly researched and badly implemented.
Nineteen-year-old Canadian Rochelle Wallis married her Welsh husband Adam in November 2008, two years after they first met and fell in love.
But now Rochelle is about to be deported from the UK and has been told that she will not be able to come back to see Adam until she is 21.
She has become the first unintended victim of changes to UK immigration laws which were designed to protect young British Asian women from being subjected to forced marriages.
See, it would appear that the government did what it does best: ignore both the shape of the hole and of the object trying to fit into it. Instead of either taking the time to write it properly, or leaving it flexible enough to adapt to different circumstances, they imposed a blanked ban. Which will screw up the lives of many people, and then the law will be remembered for the mistakes rather than the good it did.
Pretty much par for the course for this particular government, isn’t it?1
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1 – That is, if you can think of any good it did…