Category Archives: england and wales jurisdiction

LADY HALE, PRESIDENT OF THE SUPREME COURT AND FEMINIST ACTIVIST

LADY HALE, PRESIDENT OF THE SUPREME COURT AND FEMINIST ACTIVIST

Many lawyers and constitutional commentators have pointed out that Lady Hale, the President of the Supreme Court, who delivered the Judgment in the proroguing of Parliament case, and her colleagues in the Supreme Court, invented a completely new basis on which “Proceedings in Parliament” would be dealt with by the courts.  They completely ignored the legally and constitutionally correctly traditional Judgment of the High Court.  
I thought however that it was worth highlighting Lady Hale’s comments that were reported approvingly in the Sunday Times on September 29th under the headline of “Take the right partner to be supreme at law” by Nicholas Hellen.  He writes about Lady Hale and her political views from a speech that she made at the launch of “Cambridge Women in Law” in which he says that she “spent an hour dispensing her thoughts on how women can succeed in the male dominated world of the judiciary”. 
The article reports Lady Hale as saying:- “When I came to Cambridge, I knew it was a privilege.  I bet every woman in this room knew it was a privilege to be here.  But I was surrounded by men who thought they were entitled to be here.  And that is one of the things that we still have to go on fighting against.  The male sense of entitlement.”
She spoke of loosening the grip of the “quadrangle-to-quadrangle-to-quadrangle boys”.  A reference to a man who goes from a public school to Oxbridge and then to the Inns of Court “we haven’t got the history of people of our sex doing the job for generation after generation”, she told the audience. 
Hale said:- “Feminism is believing in equality, equality for women and the validity of women’s experiences.  That is how I define feminism. 
Men can be feminists too and there are lots of them and there are loads of women who aren’t.  Those are probably the people that we most have to contend with rather than men because they are in many ways the real problem rather than men.”
She also spoke of sometimes lacking in confidence, and talked of how Gina Miller, the businesswoman and campaigner who brought the case to the Supreme Court, dressed to help give her the confidence to fend off “people’s bigoted assumptions”. 
Hale suggested that this was a metaphor, “throwing light on this problem that women generally lack confidence”. 
The article finishes by saying that Lady Hale has asked Mary Arden, who has joined the Supreme Court:- “I have asked her please, please when I retire, would she keep up the good work”. 
Whatever you think of Lady Hale’s views, the one certainty it seems to me is that she is demonstrating yet again where on the spectrum her political values come from.  So she is vividly demonstrating that the Blairite creation of the Supreme Court has worked well from its creator’s point of view in entrenching Blairism into the Constitution.  It also vividly demonstrates the general effectiveness of the Left’s “Long March through the Institutions”. 
What do you think? 

Our Application to Appeal to the Court of Appeal has been dismissed


The Right Honourable Lord Justice Hickinbottom has dismissed our Application to Appeal to the Court of Appeal and has used the device of “Totally without Merit” to prevent us from demanding a hearing of our Application. 

 

Given that this is a case that very many lawyers, both distinguished and retired members of the judiciary, QCs, barristers and solicitors think has strong legal credibility, this decision can only be based upon the Judge’s politics. 

 

In the English and Welsh Jurisdiction these days a Judge’s politics perhaps should not be a surprise, given the blatant bias in the appointments system introduced under Blair by his last proper Lord Chancellor, Lord Derry Irvine, who created the Judicial Appointments Commission publicly boasting that he had created a system which would not allow the appointment of any Judges who had “Reactionary Views”. 

 

The Judicial Appointments Commission requires all Judges to prove that they have “a life-time’s commitment to Equality and Diversity”.  Lord Justice Hickinbottom has this in spades, as it says on his biography published on the Judicial website which says he is:- “the former Senior Liaison Judge for Diversity”.

 

Also Lord Justice Hickinbottom is a Fellow of the European Law Institute.  The first among ELI’s core objections is:- “To evaluate and stimulate the development of EU law, legal policy, and practice, and in particular make proposals for the further development of the acquis and for the enhancement of EU law implementation by the Member States.”

 

So it is perhaps not a surprise that a Judge with such views would be more a Europhile Left-wing political activist than someone who would judge simply according to law. 

 

Such is my explanation of why we have had this decision go against us. 

 

The reasoning behind a claim that the case was ‘Totally without Merit’ is not about an actual finding of fact, since as our QC made clear, it was blatantly obviously that the first Judge had actually got his decision wrong and therefore our Application to Appeal clearly had substantial merit. 

 

No, this decision is not about the genuine merits of the case, it is about preventing this case from being heard, which the device of ‘Totally without Merit’ achieves, as I explained in a previous blog. 

 

I think the only sensible reaction to this is to make an Application to the European Convention of Human Rights Court, based in Strasbourg.  This is of course not the EU Court, but a court that will look at whether or not these decisions to exclude our case from even getting a hearing is simply on the political orientation of the Judiciary and is a breach of Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights which states:-

 

“In the determination of his civil rights….everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearingwithin a reasonable time by an…impartial tribunal”

 

Another interesting questions is why Lord Justice Hickinbottom was chosen by the Civil Service to hear the case? 

 

I think Jacob Rees-Mogg rather gave the game away when he was asked about the case.  He made clear that he did not want it to succeed.  Maybe that is also true of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.  If so that would simply be a demonstration that both of them are much more concerned about the Conservative Party in “getting Brexit done” than about the interests of our country in how it is done.

 

The worrying element of that thought is that it means that they will be quite open to agreeing completely unacceptable surrender terms to the EU in some sort of Withdrawal Agreement. 

 

Boris’ Ministry of Justice did of course have the opportunity to influence which Judge got to look at these papers and what steer that that Judge was probably given as to the outcome that was desired. 

 

Let’s see now if the European Court of Human Rights considers that the politicised way that the High Court and the Court of Appeal operate is in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights!

 

I think it is a sad reflection on the state of our country in which we have allowed Leftist social justice warriors to dictate the agenda, not only in politics and in the media, but also in the court system.  A court system which used to be renowned for its impartial and incorruptible justice!

 

What do you think?

TOMMY ROBINSON’S PROSECUTION TO CONTINUE!

 

TOMMY ROBINSON’S PROSECUTION TO CONTINUE!

 Unfortunately my work commitments would not allow me to attend on Tuesday to support Tommy Robinson in what I thought likely to be his hour of trial.  
Had I however seen his witness statement, which I set out below, then I would have thought it likely that his case would not be tried on Tuesday because he clearly now is not going to plead guilty and is making statements of fact which the Court would want challenged in cross-examination. 
The Court’s evidence rule being that if it were not to be challenged in cross-examination, his statements of fact would have to have been accepted by the Court.  The referral by the Judge therefore to bring in the Attorney General (the State’s legal department), was not a decision that, in the long run, is definitely going to be in Tommy Robinson’s favour.  A more likely reading would appear to be that the Judge wants to see the truthfulness of Tommy Robinson’s witness statement to be challenged in Court. 
I have seen interviews with Tommy Robinson where he is saying that he doesn’t think it is right or consistent with previous practice for him to be sent to prison for Contempt of Court.  I agree with him that his treatment seems, on the face of it, to have been harsh.  It also comes on a long track record of improper official and police harassment.  This is someone who has shown great bravery in breaking the story of the many Pakistani Muslim child rape gangs operating in this country. This was disgracefully unchecked by many of the officials whose job it was to look after the public and/or the girls who were shamefully and appallingly mistreated.
However, from a legal point of view, Tommy’s problem is that he was serving a suspended jail sentence with a term of 6 months in the event that he was convicted again of Contempt of Court.  It follows therefore, as night follows day, that if he is reconvicted when his case comes back for trial he will be going back to prison.  The absolute legal minimum sentence for him, which applies automatically, is that his 6 month jail sentence is to be served. 
I think it unlikely however that any Judge convicting him of a second contempt, within the period of his first suspended prison sentence, wouldn’t give him further immediate custodial time to serve for the second offence. 
The maximum period for the second offence is 2 years imprisonment.  In my opinion, a further jail sentence is highly unlikely to approach this maximum, since this is by no means the most serious of contempts.  I would however have thought that the Court would perhaps want to assert its authority and at the same time not to provoke disorder in the way of demonstrations.  My guess would therefore be that Tommy would serve a few more weeks. 
In the meanwhile on Sunday an interesting article was published in the Sunday Times, a paper which has become less and less of  a “Journal of Record” and more and more openly propagandistic for the globalists, internationalist, British Political Establishment.
Personally I have also found it disappointing to see the author, Andrew Gilligan, slip into the rut of being a bog standard main-stream media journalist after his glory days attacking Blairs’ Iraq War “dodgy dossier”.  He does however have some interesting information in the article, which I am told is backed by those in the know!  What do you think?
Here is the Sunday Times article:-

Tommy Robinson’s ‘massive’ jail bonus: publicity

The far-right leader expects to be imprisoned this week for ‘telling the truth about Islam’. It should bring a big payday too


Andrew Gilligan
 

October 21 2018, 12:01am, The Sunday Times


The far-right figurehead who styles himself Tommy Robinson says he has sacked his lawyers and intends to get himself sent back to jail when he appears in court this week for a contempt hearing.

Former assistants to Robinson said he scooped a “massive payday” when he was jailed for contempt in May, earning huge public visibility and hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations. Robinson was jailed for 13 months after confronting and filming men of Pakistani origin outside a court, where they were on trial for their alleged parts in Britain’s biggest sex grooming gang.

On Friday it emerged that the men were among 20 convicted as members of a gang that subjected girls as young as 11 to an “inhuman” campaign of rape and sexual abuse in Huddersfield. The judge, Geoffrey Marson QC, said the footage, which Robinson live-streamed on Facebook, risked prejudicing the trial and jeopardised other cases against the gang.

It is believed that a return to prison would gain further money and attention for Robinson, 35, who was released on appeal in August pending the hearing on Tuesday. In May, Robinson admitted the contempt and apologised — but he now appears to have recanted.

In a video interview with PI News, an obscure German website, he said: “I sacked my solicitors because they tried to broker a deal where I apologise and I admit guilt, and then if I do that then I go home.

“And I said, I’m never going to do that. . . . They were working for the other side, that’s what I felt. This is a historic moment, and I want to speak and stand by my convictions. So I’m going to stand up in court and read a statement . . . that tells the truth about Islam . . . I’d rather go to jail for the next 25 years than accept guilt for telling the truth . . . I am going to lay the gauntlet down to the government. . . . When you read what I’m going to say in court, I’m calling all of them out . . . I know 100% I am going to jail.”

Robinson was speaking after receiving the “European patriot of the year” award at a conference in Bavaria organised by the hard-right magazine Compact. In his acceptance speech, he said: “German people for too long have lived in the guilt of Adolf Hitler. Do not live in the guilt of Angela Merkel.”

The conference, on September 29, brought together key figures on the European far right, including Lutz Bachmann, the founder of Pegida, Martin Sellner, from the Generation Identity movement, leaders of the Alternative for Germany party and a representative of the Italian leader, Matteo Salvini. Compact has been funded by the Kremlin-created Institute for Democracy and Co-operation.

A former assistant to Robinson, who had access to his Stripe online payment processing account, claimed it contained £2m after his jailing and appeal, thanks to a flood of donations, mostly small amounts. Another former assistant, Lucy Brown, told The Sunday Times in August that Robinson operated a “business” in which “your outrage, valid as it is, will be monetised as such”.

Robinson recently moved into a £950,000 house in an upmarket village in Bedfordshire. The detached, gated property has four bedrooms, a two- bedroom annexe and a double garage.

John Carson, of Carson Kaye, Robinson’s solicitor for the August appeal, refused to comment last night. The firm described Robinson as a client in a tweet two days before the German interview.

It is understood Robinson may have been referring not to Carson but to his barrister in the August appeal, Jeremy Dein QC, who has parted company with Robinson and did not represent him at a brief interim hearing last month.

Dein disputed he was sacked, saying he “withdrew for professional reasons”.

Robinson did not return messages asking for comment. In a video on his Facebook page on Friday, after the rape convictions were reported, he repeated that he would be “convicted on Tuesday”.
Here is the published text of Tommy Robinson’s Witness Statement:-
IN THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT IN THE MATTER OF THE CONTEMPT OF COURT ACT 1981

IN THE MATTER OF STEPHEN YAXLEY LENNON

WITNESS STATEMENT OF STEPHEN YAXLEY LENNON

I, Stephen Lennon, journalist, of an address known to the court and of Luton, will say as follows:

17.  I am the defendant in these contempt proceedings, and the Court has served me with two allegations of contempt against me. This is one more than I faced in the Crown Court at Leeds.

18. In relation to the first allegation, breaching the order of the court, which requires as I understand it an intention to interfere with the administration of justice, I would like to say this.

19. Firstly, I would like to assure the court that undermining the court’s authority or interfering with the administration of justice was never my intention. I believed I acted in good faith within the parameters of the section 4 reporting restriction in place. The information I provided was in the public domain, factual and relevant but did not provide any details of the trial proceedings other than what had already been reported previously and was readily available online. I rely on the documents in my bundle as examples of what had previously been reported.

20. When I arrived at Leeds Crown Court that morning I could not obtain any specific details of the reporting restriction order. I do not believe there is a website which holds such details, so I researched online and reviewed the reporting restriction guidelines provided. They state that the court should include details of reporting restrictions on the court listings both online and in court and also provide a notice on the door of the court. My solicitors have photographic evidence to show that the court did not follow these guidelines that day and had no details listed anywhere of a reporting restriction for that case. This is also in the bundle. The only time the notification about reporting restrictions was available was later that afternoon after the Court had convicted me and sent me to prison. Only then did the Court follow the guidelines and list a reporting restriction against the court listings for both the grooming case and my subsequent case.

21. After my previous experience with contempt of court in Canterbury I went out of my way to ensure I would not fall foul of the law again. I privately paid for training with one of London’s leading law firms, Kingsley Napley, to cover all details regarding contempt of court. There is documentation in relation to this in my bundle.

22. On that morning at Leeds Crown Court I had knowledge of the verdicts of the first phase of this grooming trial and many of the specific details discussed in court for this particular trial. I did not talk about these in my livestream on that day. I had understood based on my training that the specifics of the case and the verdicts were off limits for reporting restrictions.

23. Having been unable to obtain any details from the court on the conditions of the reporting restriction I decided to review the guidelines for reporting restrictions. On the Judiciary’s website there is a practical guide aimed at judges and the media on the statutory and common law principles that should be applied with regards to reporting restrictions. The paper was called ‘Reporting Restrictions in the Criminal Courts April 2015 (Revised May 2016)’. In this paper it stated that Courts have no power under s.4(2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 to prevent publication of material that is already in the public domain (see page 27 of this document).


24.I followed my training and this guidance to the letter. I did not divulge any of the previous case verdicts, did not detail any specifics mentioned in the trial, did not assume guilt and refrained from entering court property. I even asked the officer outside the court where the court boundaries were and that I was ok to film where I was to which he confirmed.

25. I also followed that guidance document issued on the Judiciary website informing me that I could only reference information that was already in the public domain. Every single thing I said that day was already in the public domain. I actually read charges and names of the defendants from a BBC article which to this day is still live on their website. I also made sure not to film anyone other than the defendants, I was calm and respectful throughout.

10.  It is my understanding that there is no individual in the last 60 years that has been sentenced to prison for a publication breach of a reporting order. It would appear to me that my punishment is exceptional. I would ask that I am treated in the same manner as every other journalist who has been charged with these allegations. The journalist Rod Liddle was writing for the Spectator magazine in relation to the Stephen Lawrence murder trial, and when he was sentenced for breaching the section 4 order, and risking prejudice to the trial, was given a fine. Journalists at the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror published highly prejudicial material on the trail of Levi Bellfield who abducted and murdered an 11-year-old child. This contempt of court led to the collapse of the entire case and discharge of the jury and robbed one of his victims of the chance for justice. The reporters in this instance were not prosecuted and instead their employers were found guilty of contempt and fined £10,000.

11. I have reviewed the transcripts from Leeds Crown Court where the Judge was discussing various reporting order breaches. The judge and the CPS discuss the fact that multiple news sources breached the very same order placed on my trial with some breaching both the reporting orders by mentioning the grooming trial as well as my arrest and prison term. Lizzie Dearden the home affairs correspondent at the Independent actually refused to remove the article when provided with the order stating that the effect of social media voids reporting restrictions, so she could not be held in contempt of court. The CPS and the judge agreed that these breaches of the order were a matter for the Attorney General to review.

14. When I was informed of the blanket order, I offered to delete my video immediately. Despite the multiple breaches of the order by different newspapers that weekend and the flat refusal of Lizzie Dearden to take her article down, not one of those journalists or the editors of those publications, were ever arrested or prosecuted for s.4(2) of the Contempt of Court Act.

15. According to the court transcript the newspaper breaches of the reporting order was a matter for the Attorney General. My case was not referred to the Attorney General for review and instead I was hauled into court immediately, refused my own choice of legal representation, prosecuted, and convicted in a matter of minutes in what the Court of Appeal regarded as a flawed trial. I was then imprisoned for over 2.5 months in solitary confinement until I won the appeal. I was held against my categorisation, moved to the highest Muslim population Cat C prison, subjected to mental torture and constant threats and abuse and had all of my rights removed in the interest of prison safety.

16. It is clear to me that my continued prosecution and heavy-handed tactics from the state is because of ‘who I am’ rather than ‘what I did’.

17. In relation to the second allegation, the strict liability allegation, I would like to say this.

18. It is only since my original trial that there has been an additional charge added suggesting that the contents of my livestream were prejudicial to this case. The case completed, the jury concluded, and the verdicts were given. I would like to state clearly that in the transcript from the original trial the judge discussed my video with Mr Wright QC, prosecution counsel. Having reviewed the content of my video Mr Wright stated in court: ‘here is nothing they could have seen that could in any way prejudice them against the defendants’. Judge Marson agreed on the record.

19. For this reason, (a) I cannot see why I should face two charges when the core of the allegation in front of Judge Marson was the breach of the section 4(2) order, other than because I am regarded as a political activist and the charges are motivated by my political activism, and (b) I do not accept that the material that was live streamed created either a real or substantial risk of prejudice to the Leeds proceedings. The prosecution counsel and the Judge both agreed on the court transcript that my livestream could not have prejudiced the jury.

20. Everything I reported that morning was fair and accurate and published in good faith within the constraints of the judiciary’s guidelines for the media.

21. I will address each point in the allegations drafted by the Advocate to the Court.

22. The first allegation is that I suggested the defendants were involved in wider criminal activity. This is not correct. I was referring to two reports, one on the radio and one in the Huddersfield Examiner which set out the allegations relating to the 29 individuals. I cannot find the original references but a similar report on the BBC relating to the allegations is in the defence bundle.

23. The second allegation is that stating that those of the same ethnicity and religion as the defendants were disproportionally likely to commit the crimes for which the defendants were being tried could prejudice the trial.

24. This statement is factually correct. The Quilliam foundation who are a Muslim run anti extremism think tank have produced a research paper looking at convictions of this type 1 street grooming from 2005 – 2017. This is in the defence bundle. They found that 84% of all convictions were south Asian with the significant majority of those being Pakistani Muslim. All of these victims were white children. 

25. Sajid Javid the Home Secretary himself announced on BBC news this year that in these types of street grooming trials the individuals convicted are from a disproportionately Pakistani background.

26. Nazir Afzal is the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service in the north west of England and a lead prosecutor on child sexual abuse and he also publicly stated on Channel 4 News that Asians and Pakistanis in particular are disproportionately involved in this type of street grooming. He also presented these facts in front of Parliament.

26.  I merely stated factual insight into the ethnicity and religious make up of perpetrators of these types of crimes. I repeated publicly available research papers from the Quilliam Organisation, testimony from the former head of Crown Prosecution Service in the Northwest and a statement from the Home Secretary himself all three of which are in fact Pakistani Muslims themselves.

27. I do not accept that reporting facts on the ethnicity or the make-up of particular offender groups could be categorised as contempt of court given the number of grooming gang trials currently in progress across the United Kingdom and the commentary on those facts which are widely discussed in the media.

28. The third allegation is that highlighting as significant the sexual references of the abuse that I had elicited from the defendants could prejudice the trial.

29.  I asked each of the defendants what their views were on their verdict they were expecting to hear that day. All 3 of them separately made aggressive vulgar sexual references or sexual threats against both my mother and my wife. I did not ask the defendants to comment on their views of my wife and mother, they did this out of the blue. Repeating what they actually said in the video has no relevance or prejudice on the trial itself.

30. The fourth allegation is that I made derogatory comments about the ethnic or religious backgrounds of the defendants.

31. I would like to point out I was not talking about the specific defendants on trial I was referring to reaction I had received by family and friends of previous convicted grooming gangs. By derogatory comments it appears to mean telling the truth that under Islamic law, the “age of consent” coincides with puberty. In Islam there is no set age for marriage. The Islamic Prophet Muhammad, who is said to serve as a role model for every Muslim, is reported by Sunni Hadith sources to have married Aisha when she was six or seven years old, with the marriage consummated when she was nine years old and he was 56 years old. The prosecution may not like to hear the truth but there is no way that sharing the truth and facts about a particular religion on social media can lead to prejudice on a trial. 

https://btmail.bt.com/cp/ext/resources/images/default/s.gifhttps://btmail.bt.com/cp/ext/resources/images/default/s.gif

32. In relation to the fifth allegation, a number of the comments relied on were made by other people, and my comments related to grooming trials generally across the country rather than the particular case (e.g. the exchange at page 8 of the transcript of the livestream related to Rotherham, and Oxford). I made it clear throughout that the trial concerned allegations. 

33. The nature and number of these ongoing trials, prosecutions and investigations is highly alarming and I believe it is in the public’s interest to hear the details and know of the complexities and connections amongst the previous prosecutions. 

34. The future safety of vulnerable children at risk is my concern here not the perceived prejudice towards the defendants because of their ethnicity or religion. If 29 white Christian priests were on trial on such charges with reporting restrictions, I would feel exactly the same. 

35. When I initially went to report on the Canterbury trial I did so in what I felt was the public interest. The police had DNA evidence on all four of the now convicted child rapists, yet the decision was made to grant these individuals bail. They were still running the same take away shop and coming into contact with young school children. One of the defendants absconded to Afghanistan. With DNA evidence on each of the now convicted child rapists it was my belief that they should have been remanded to prison until trial in order to protect vulnerable children in the surrounding area. Instead the decision was made to release them back into the community on bail.

36. The same danger was placed on the children in case in question. The now convicted child gang rapists on trial in Leeds that day were also free to walk the streets on bail. There were 18 different witness statements detailing the rape and torture of those children and yet the justice system decided that they did not pose a risk to the public and granted them bail. 

37. Just like the Canterbury case one of these child rapists in the Leeds trial on also absconded before his verdict was reached. I believe he has fled to Pakistan and according to the court transcripts he was last seen leaving his house with a large bag. That is a convicted child rapist free to roam the streets because he was deemed no risk to the public and granted bail. 

38. I have previously been charged with a non-violent offence, and I was remanded straight to prison to await trial. At Leeds Crown Court in May this year, the police whisked me from the streets, I was subjected to a fundamentally flawed trial and then sent straight to prison inside 5 hours. This is all whilst the very same system allows alleged child rapists with multiple prosecution witness statements and DNA evidence implicating them in the crime to continue to walk the streets. 

39. The court has a duty to the victims and the public to protect them and telling them could help stop ongoing child sexual exploitation and maybe prevent future vulnerable children from falling victim to it.             
  
40. Again I would like to reiterate that undermining the judge, the court, the proceedings, the supremacy of the law or the administration of justice was never my intention, but I truly believe the reporting restrictions on this trial and subsequent connected trials are detrimental to the public and should never have been imposed so the public could hear the details, and use the knowledge of the proceedings to help prevent further cases such as these coming before the courts. 

41. The jurors are given a responsibility. They are aware of the consequences of researching the cases they sit on. It should be upon them and we should trust them to do the task with honesty and integrity; it should not be for the public to be kept purposely in the dark just in case they do not.
 

Dated this 22nd day of October 2018  _

______________________

Stephen Lennon
https://btmail.bt.com/cp/ext/resources/images/default/s.gifhttps://btmail.bt.com/cp/ext/resources/images/default/s.gif
Here is a link to the original>>> https://www.scribd.com/document/391403703/Tommy-Robinson-s-witness-statement#fullscreen&from_embed

POLICE NUMBERS AND FUNDING

POLICE NUMBERS AND FUNDING

These days we hear lots of complaints in the media about the funding of the police and many calls that we should have more police. 

Actually the real issue isn’t the numbers of the police.   
It is worth bearing in mind that in 1960, when the legal jurisdiction of England and Wales was generally an amazingly law abiding place, with many of our traditional English communities still vibrant, there was just one police officer for every 643 members of the population of England and Wales!

Since then we have had an avalanche of legislative verbal diarrhoea from the British State, which has created many thousands of new offences.  The British State is also seeking to interfere in many aspects of English life which in 1960 would have been considered to be no business of the State to interfere in. 

There has also been extensive political interference by politically correct British politicians in the way that the English police are allowed to operate.  This has dramatically reduced police effectiveness. 

The English criminal courts have also been massively interfered with.  There has been a long period of so called “reform” being imposed by the British Political Establishment at such a rate that new reforms have frequently been imposed before the previous set of reforms have even been properly implemented! 

Is it any wonder that now, even though there is now one police officer for every 477 members of the population of England and Wales, that nevertheless their effectiveness in preventing crime is vastly inferior to what it was in 1960?

There is of course also to consider the huge demographic changes that has been engineered in the population of England and Wales since 1960. These have imported forms of criminality from many of the lawless parts of the world.  In 1960 these were unknown in England and Wales. 

All in all the statistics about police numbers are a vivid reminder, if any were needed, just how poorly the British Political Establishment has governed our once peaceful and once largely law abiding England over the last 60 years!

Time for a change anyone?


SENTENCING COUNCIL WANTS TOUGHER SENTENCES AGAINST OPPONENTS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

SENTENCING COUNCIL WANTS TOUGHER SENTENCES AGAINST OPPONENTS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
I recently spotted that the anonymous Establishment entity calling themselves the “Sentencing Council” was proposing to dramatically increase the sentencing for those who infringe against the British State’s clamp down on free speech.  Here is the English Democrats’ submission on this matter:-
Dear Sir
The English Democrats submission to your consultation is firstly to observe that your Sentencing Council document fails to disclose details of the participating membership of the Council or their relevant interests, such as religion, ethnicity, national identity, racial group, sexuality, etc.  This cannot be right if there is be any transparency or openness in your “consultation”.  You also do not make clear how the members of the Council were appointed and whether there is any transparency in the appointments system.  Again this is another inappropriate lacuna in your document. 
Your consultation starts off with a series of dubious and unsupported assertions about the growth of “Hate Crime”.  So far as we are aware there are in fact no objective figures for the extent of the actual commission of “Hate Crimes”.  Instead what you report is merely the produce of encouraging the reporting of “Hate Crime” and recording all such reports however bogus they may actually be.
What is however known is that the politicisation of policing by the British Political Establishment continues apace in England, which of course is the only part of the “United Kingdom”, which instead of being self-governing, is directly ruled by the British Government.  This establishment is self-interestedly seeking to clamp down on the rising sense of English National Identity.  The results of the 2011 Census showed that 60.4% of the people of England regard their National Identity as “English only” and not “British”.  This was an unwelcome development for the British Political Establishment which has been increasingly directing police resources to clamp down on English free speech.  This is in sharp distinction to the traditional English liberty whose traditional attitude can be encapsulated in playground expression “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me!” 
The already somewhat un-English and authoritarian legal restrictions on free speech are rendered not only logically incoherent but also nakedly political by the Aggravated Offence Provisions.
In the circumstances, whilst we have nothing to say about the more serious offences involving violence or the threat of violence, we strongly object to your unaccountable body seeking to impose stiffer sentences on those whose exercise of free speech is only treated as a crime if what is said offends Left/Liberal Internationalist/Globalist anti-nationalist/multi-culturalist, anti-English, politically correct opinion.  Conversely when patriots and nationalists are viciously smeared we are told that this must be accepted as legitimate expressions of Free Speech.  The lack of balance and equivalence between these approaches demonstrates that you are seeking to do nothing more than to further politicise the criminal justice system in support of the British Political Establishment rather than on the basis of rationality or dispassionate objectivity. 
Yours sincerely
(Here is a link to the entire document >>>  https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/6.4328_Public_Order_Offences_Guideleines_Consultation_web.pdf 
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/6.4328_Public_Order_Offences_Guideleines_Consultation_web.pdf

What do you think?  Do put in your own submissions because the more people that object the more likely the Establishment is to drop the idea!  Here is their email address to complain to:- info@SentencingCouncil.gov.uk

ENGLAND AND WALES: IS IT TIME TO SPLIT THE LEGAL SYSTEM?


ENGLAND AND WALES: IS IT TIME TO SPLIT THE LEGAL SYSTEM?

I recently wrote an article about the above for publication on the Institute for Welsh Affairs’ website “Click on Wales”. It was published slightly amended here >>> England and Wales: is it time to split the legal system? – Click on Wales

http://www.iwa.wales/click/2017/03/england-wales-time-split-legal-system/

Here is my full original article:-

ENGLAND AND WALES – TIME TO SPLIT THE LEGAL SYSTEM?

There are now beginning to be moves afoot to split the unitary “jurisdiction” of England and Wales into two separate national jurisdictions.

In many ways such a split is not as radical a move as it might seem, bearing in mind that there are already separate jurisdictions in Scotland; in Northern Ireland; in the Isle of Man and in the Channel Isles with different Judges, procedures and often different substantive legal rules. Separate jurisdictions do not necessarily cause much practical difficulty in dealing with either civil matters or criminal matters. What it does however mean is that there would be separate legal professions.

Furthermore, even outside the Commonwealth, jurisdictions like Southern Ireland have relatively similar rules.

The jurisdictions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and quite a few others of the old Empire/Commonwealth are similar to. There are also often less differences between their legal systems and the English/Welsh legal system than there is with the Roman Law based jurisdiction in Scotland.

It is more difficult to deal with continental European systems since they are not based on Common Law principles but rather on civil law codes deriving from Roman Law, with substantively different legal rules and often dramatically different legal procedures!

My interest in the splitting of the current unitary jurisdiction of “England and Wales” into two national ones was first raised by a discussion that I had some months ago with a senior Welsh Judge who said that he wants to see a split.

Then, just before Christmas, the Law Society Gazette had an article called in the printed version “A bridge too far” talking about splitting the jurisdictions. The on-line edition was called: English solicitors ‘could pay extra to practise in Wales’. (It can be found here >>> https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/english-solicitors-could-pay-extra-to-practise-in-wales/5059013.article)

Increasingly the Welsh Parliament/Senedd are legislating for Wales, in a way that is different than the legislation for England. There will therefore come a time very soon when it no longer makes sense to have a single jurisdiction.

Putting my hat on as Chairman of the English Democrats rather than as a solicitor I would also welcome separation of the jurisdictions as being an important step in the direction of Independence between our two Nations. In our modern world there is no reason why our two separate Nations should be constrained into the same grossly expensive and inefficient, grandiose and extravagant UK State!

If I were a Welsh solicitor or barrister I would be optimistic about the prospects of a successful separate Welsh Jurisdiction.

As long as the Welsh Government could be persuaded to reduce the currently absolutely ridiculous level of court fees, by which the British Government has been exploiting litigants in the “England and Wales” jurisdiction there would be real benefits.

The Welsh Government would then have the right to run its own Legal Aid scheme. This could be more like the successful Scottish one and less like the unfair disaster that the “British” Government has created.

It should also be pointed out that the Welsh Government ought to want to take-over the judicial appointments system, which in England and Wales is currently very politicised.

Judges here are currently appointed and promoted by the Judicial Appointments Commission. The JAC was set up by Lord Derry Irvine, when he was Tony Blair’s Lord Chancellor, which he publically boasted would prevent the appointment or promotion of “those with reactionary views”. This aim might appeal to you or repulse you depending on which side you stand on politically, but what cannot be denied is that this is an expressly political criterion for the appointment of Judges. It is wholly inappropriate to getting the best lawyers appointed as Judges. It is also contrary to providing the best service to those who use the court system!

Far from being a problem the separate jurisdictions could make the Welsh jurisdiction very attractive and might lead to many businesses having a Welsh-only legal jurisdiction clause in commercial contracts since there would be less expense and less delay and perhaps a better selection of sensible Welsh Judges.

Also from an economic point of view the current arrangements are clearly not working very well for Welsh lawyers as it appears that fees in Wales are dramatically lower than those in England.

A separate and overhauled and sensibly rationalised completely Welsh legal system could well be much more competitive with the English jurisdiction and provide a boost not only to Welsh lawyers but also to the Welsh economy.

As the Gazette article says:- “The buildings are all here (in Wales), the judges are all here. More is spent per head in England,’ said Hughes. ‘At the moment Wales is not gaining [in terms of] access to justice. SMEs in Wales are subsidising multi-million-pound litigation between oligarchs in London. That does nothing for the community in Wales – the fees are not coming back.’

A legally independent Wales would be able to do ‘imaginative’ things to enhance access, Hughes suggested, such as introduce a contingency legal aid fund. ‘Wales would not be a particularly small common law jurisdiction. If it were a US state, 20 [states] would be smaller,’ he added.

‘The problems of the Wales bill are largely to do with the mania for preserving a fused jurisdiction,’ said Hughes. ‘But the bill is a con. It is not a reserved powers model on any sensible understanding. There is a presumption against competence in private law.

’Since our pamphlet came out the Assembly has come out in support of a separate jurisdiction and the Welsh government is using the arguments we put forward – both economic and constitutional.’

As both an English Solicitor and also as the Chairman of the English Democrats, I welcome these moves. Also if any reader in Wales supports a separate Welsh legal system then I would urge them to write to their Assembly Members and MP to lobby them to support a separate legal system. Do not forget also to write in to Barrister David Hughes, of 30 Park Place Chambers in Cardiff, supporting him as well!