There is a rather interesting look at the laws about donations over on Iain's blog. It appears that by ripping up the cheque from David Abrahams proxy (as has been reported) then the donation was never technically returned under the law and so should have been registered anyway. Yes a little bit legally pedantic, but still, the law is the law is the law right?
More here
8 comments:
If it was never cashed then the donor never actually gave them money, so nothing to return? Since they never recieved anything they never had anything to return.
It would be fun if the bribes were returned to Abrahams as promised.... then Liebour instructed to forfeit a sum equal to those illegal donations... as required by law.
The law is ridiculous in this respect.
As much as I want to see this shower of sh1t off to the wilderness, I'd rather it be for real, wrong stuff than minor mistakes like this.
You'd need to look at the wording of the act to decide what receiving a donation and making a donation was in this case.
Consider, "bribing or attempting to bribe a police officer" and "selling or offering for sale a stolen car". Proscribing the attempted offence stops a horse and cart being driven through the law.
From what I've read of it, the PPER is poorly drafted, and receiving a cheque and not cashing it probably doesn't class as making and receiving a donation. It reads as if these donations were expected to be made in cash.
But they could just let it sit around and still have the option to cash it if they need it. That's the reason for the rule -- you have to declare upon receipt, not later on, when you use the money.
If you want to opine on what a cheque constitues in law then you should look at its legal definition which is pretty well known. If you cannot be bothered to do this then you certainly shouldn't start offering legal interpretaions and accusing people of breaking the law - as Dale was daft enough to do. And yes you can only break the letter of the law - laws don't have spirits much as we might want them to!
Who was opining, other than you of course?
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