BOOK OF BELIEFS

OLIVER SKEETE's 'Commentary' (Mail) is based on a profound misunderstanding
of the contents of the Equal Treatment Bench Book issued to judges. Your
story, Judge's Parting Shot, includes the same misapprehensions. There is
no question of there being one law for Rastafarians and another law for
everyone else.

The Bench Book, produced by the Judicial Studies Board, is an excellent
document. One of its purposes is to describe the customs and beliefs of
ethnic minority groups so that judges are better informed.

The aim of the guidance is not one of 'political correctness'; indeed, the
relevant section in the Bench Book is unchanged since the last edition,
published in 1995. The over-riding objective is to overcome barriers of
distrust between the ethnic minorities and the court system.

What the bench Book says about Rastafarian attitudes to cannabis is accurate.

No one reading the Bench Book could reasonably think that this was saying
that judges should let off Rastafarian cannabis users or be specially
lenient to them. The notion that the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Chief
Justice was sending out any such signal is nonsense.

Alan Percival Lord Chancellor's Dept, London SW1