On: MPs seek to overturn ruling that stops police being sued for failings

Some men in Parliament want to keep a shield over the police. A court said a person wronged may sue. Now the lawmakers say no - let the shield stand.

I have stood before rooms of men who made laws about my body without asking my body. I know this weather. The lawgiver writes the rule, then wonders why the ruled complain.

Think on what a shield covers. A man in uniform fabricates a lie. He is dishonest. He is careless with a life. And the men in fine halls say he must not be answerable. Answerable to whom, then? To himself? A man who judges his own case is judge, jury, and the wrong all at once.

I carried children and saw them carried off. If a constable stood by and did nothing - or worse, helped - and I went to the law for a word of redress, what would they tell me? That the officer is protected. That my grief has no standing. That the door is locked from the inside.

They say suits against police would open a flood. I say the flood already came through - it came through the front door of every house where the shielded man did his work. The lawsuit is not the flood. The lawsuit is the mop.

And here is the question that needs no answer: if the officer did nothing wrong, what does he fear from a courtroom? Only the guilty need a shield that big. An honest man stands in the light and lets the facts look at him.

So I say to those MPs: come down from your benches. Stand in the street where the shielded man does his work. Stand where the mother stands. Then vote. If your vote is the same after standing there, at least you voted with your eyes open.

The law that cannot be questioned is not law. It is a wall. And walls were built to be stood against.