To think you obey the law of the land ?

[SerendipityJane]

Surely it's simple ? You move to a country and you respect it's laws.

What am I missing here ? Or should we now allow foreign governments to represent their citizens who break UK law in the UK ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cevkd2jzpxyo

Completely agree. We frame laws in other Countries as harsh or unjust and punishments as punitive against our societal standards and our laws. But they are not our laws or our society. There's good evidence that are more 'liberal' laws and sanctions in Western Countries are actually more detrimental to the whole of society then the perceived 'harsh' laws in other Countries. But to live in another Country and not comply with their laws and then expect your home Country to intervene is just wrong.

Yes, but the issue is likely to be that they are detained but not charged, have no court date set or any idea how long they may remain in custody. Which is why they need the assistance of the consulate. It's not about getting out of jail scott-free. It's about having clear procedures followed - broke the law, detained for x number of days, charged, trialed, fined/imprisoned/released.

So the median time in UK for a jury trial is 400 days wait with some up to 3 years. Median remand (locked up without trial) is now over 6 months with 8 months now not unusual. You get charged in UK and you have no idea when it will be in Court, how long the process will be, if a judge collapses it on legal issues, etc etc.
Maybe we should be giving assistance to people in UK before we worry about legal systems in other Countries.

There are nearly 17k people locked up in UK who have not been convicted or sentenced for their crime. Some never get convicted, some don't get custodial sentences. But they still spent time in UK prisons.

People arrested in foreign countries are always entitled to government assistance through the local embassy or consulting. Nothing has changed.

Yes and no. Foreigners don't know the rules like the locals do.

This. It's not the UK's job to try and convict them to see if they deserve consular assistance. Everyone gets it.

Ignorance of the law is not a defence. They should find out what they are not allowed to do in this dictatorial country.

We should be doing both at the same time.

Well figure them out before you go?

There are plenty of countries I won’t ever go to, in part, because I don’t want to follow what I perceive to be stupid laws.

There are others I will go to and be careful not to transgress.