20th September 2006, 05:09 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by BAJR HostCan you explain how (and why) you propose divorcing section ii from section i (or indeed the rest of the document)? The three parts of Article 3 are an integral whole, since section ii and iii are an expansion of section i. If you look at the punctuation. you will see that its all one sentence, in other words you are asking people to vote "Not as it is presently worded" on just one clause of a complex sentence, that is on an incomplete thought. This clause refers back to the verb and object of the clause at the beginning of Article 3(i).
We are concentrating on the Section ii only for this poll
Please look again at at section iii which is where I presume the problem lies for you because it mentions the M.... D.... words. It states: "whenever foreseen by the domestic law of the State" and UK law does not as you (and the detectorists here) know "forsee" it [except of course the case of certain categories of site, such as scheduled ones]. Neither does Article 3 state there SHOULD be such a law; this is a common misunderstanding. Also if you look harder it says "the use of metal detectors [...] for archaeological investigation". So its not (arguably) applicable to the hobbyists anyway. But it does have an important element, that any potentially destructive process archaeologists might like to use in our investigations (dynamiting open tombs for example) should be specifically mentioned on this permit.
So can somebody explain where is the problem on voting on the whole of Article 3 and not just one fragment of it - which in any case was surely the topic of the previous poll?
Paul Barford