Unlawful killing is a verdict from an inquest, not a court of law. It is what triggers a police investigation and would lead to a prosecution for murder or manslaughter being brought if a suspect is identified and able to be charged..
And so acting unlawfully can result in prosecution if an offence has been committed. The reason it is called unlawful is because it is against the law (who knew!)
For an offence to be committed and a prosecution to be pursued, the offence has to be prescribed in statute, yes?
Whether an offence in law has been committed is a moot point, but what is clear is that everyone, including the law makers them selves, really ought to try quite hard to not act unlawfully. One can only assume there is a good reason for having the laws/rules in the first place and a painstaking process involving in depth scrutiny along the way would've been followed to bring them into being in the first place. The point is Laws, rules, regulations - call them what you will - don't just happen!
It is an incredibly shitty way for any government and democratic law making body to act, to simply ignore and ride roughshod over any such rules and laws as they see fit on the basis of that they likely won't face any criminal sanctions over it. But again it comes back to how much the government of the day actually care about such thing as pesky laws and rules.
And it is entirely right that these things are in the public domain and the government of the day (and day and any flavour) are held to account for them. I assume the electorate are not normally in the habit of electing a government to go to work for them, to make laws and rules that all need to abide by - including them, and then just ignore as they see fit.
Or maybe we
have we reached the point where the Government can do pretty much what it wants, so long as prosecution doesn't result. And they can get away with it as long as they tough it out, no ministers resign (instead, some government adviser will fall on their sword). And as an electorate sweetener, they'll quickly jump on some populist issue (booing/Ollie Robinson suspension etc tc) that will strike a chord with enough voters to keep them thinking "yes - they think like me...therefore I will forgive the rest of their shithousery". Job done- choppy waters smoothed and the crime goes unpunished at the ballot box, where dishonest underhand politicians would traditionally meet their fate.
Maybe they are just the Jamie Mackie/Chris McGuire of governments. Fine in a Yellow Shirt - absolute arseholes if doing it for anyone else!