The burka and the berks

The French are supplying us with a valuable lesson on the limitations of government and the folly of passing legislation without thinking it through.

After the ban on the burka, the first two women were to be prosecuted, in the town of Meaux, where they had been arrested for wearing burkas at an anti-burka ban protest. One didn't turn up. The other was not allowed into the courtroom wearing a burka because it is a public building. She was asked to remover her veil before entering but, quite understandably, refused. She was sent home.

There was no procedure to deal with this rather obvious outcome: presumably the woman can't be identified so it might be anybody underneath the black covering. Equally it might have been anybody when she (even he) was arrested.

This would only work if at arrest and also at prosecution they were forcibly divested of their burkas, in which case the French would be subject to a barrage of human rights claims. It will still proably go to the Court of Human Rights, with the lawyers chuckling all the way to the bank.

The law is an ass and the French are even bigger asses still.