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UK: Masons should reveal themselves

01 March 1997

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In March a Home Affairs Committee of MPs recommended that police officers, judges, magistrates, and Crown prosecutors should be required to register their membership of the freemasons or any other secret society. The Committee's recommendation follows an inquiry into freemasonry in the judiciary and the police. The report, which was opposed by three Conservative members of the Committee, is also expected to be opposed by the United Grand Lodge of Freemasons.

For the police the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has vowed not to sign up to a register condemning it as "an infringement of personal liberty", but the Superintendent's Association has backed it. The Police Federation, which represents 125,000 police officers below the rank superintendent, claimed that the recommendations were "flawed". The Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay, was opposed to forcing judges to own up to membership claiming that he did not feel that he had the authority to demand information from them. The report noted that there were nearly 350,000 masons, in 7835 lodges, in England and Wales.

Freemasonry in the police and the judiciary, House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee (HMSO) 1996.

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