I Back the Judges
Senior judges are at odds with David Milliband over documents concerning interrogations in the US.
Here’s the first two paragraphs of the BBC report.
Senior judges say the foreign secretary is stopping them releasing details of CIA interrogation techniques – even though the US has published them.
The High Court says it wants to refer to previously classified documents as part of its judgement on the alleged mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed.
Interestingly, it would appear that the BBC’s web page links to the documents on the American Civil Liberties Union.
So if we can all read them on the web, why can’t the judges use them?
But then we are never given the truth by government when it suits them. Chevaline was the codename of the project by the Callaghan Government to update the Polaris missiles in the 1970s. It was kept secret for years and only a few years ago, the only full reference to it on the Internet was on the Federation of American Scientists.
We need a lot more information to be published. And not about MPs expenses, which is just peanuts compared to the dark and terrible secrets of things that governments do in our name.
William Garrow
My late wife was a barrister.
I’m watching the BBC drama about William Garrow, who is credited with laying down the principles of defending the accused in Court.
It is fascinating.
I never saw her in Court except for one fleeting moment in front of Judge Greenwood in Chelmsford, but Garrow’s principles are those that she fought with for all her professional career.
These principles are those that we are in danger of losing, as Prudence and his awful government, make it more and more difficult for a defendant to obtain a trial that my wife would have considered fair.
The New Supreme Court
I’m not sure about the Supreme Court – Well, the building that is, even if I’m absolutely sure that we need a Court to as many lawyers have put it over the years, “Stand up for the man on the Clapham omnibus”.
An article by the eminent lawyer, Ken MacDonald, in The Times sums the Court all up very well. It looks like though they are setting out their message from this paragraph.
Now at the apex of this system of law stands the Supreme Court, open for business this morning. With deliberate symbolism, the new Justices have chosen their first case to test the limits on a government’s right to make law by executive order. The message is clear: this will be a Constitutional Court and it will take to power with ease.
I will be watching the progress of the Court with interest.
Japan Suspends Death Penalty
It may surprise some people that Japan still uses the death penalty. They also apply it in a particularly inhumane way in that the convicted is not told until the last minute. His relatives aren’t told either and they don’t get his body back.
But this is now effectively suspended, as all executions are signed off by the Justice Minister. And the new Prime Minister has appointed Keiko Chiba, who is a fierce opponent of capital punishment. So she won’t sign! Good!
Let’s hope that she gets rid of the law for ever.
Updating the Web Libel Laws
I try to be pretty careful about what I put on this blog. After all my late wife was a barrister, who had done her first pupilage in defamation chambers, so she knew a bit. And she warned me about what I put on the web.
But some of the laws on libel such as the “multiple publication rule” date from the 1850s or so and the government has launched a consultation on updating them. After all they were created before radio and television, let alone the Internet.
Among its suggestions are that the law could be replaced with a “single publication rule”, which would allow just a single court action against defamatory material, to prevent “open-ended liability”.
It discusses changing the limitation period for claims, such as extending it to three years after an article is published.
Publishers of online archives and blogs might also be given a defence of qualified privilege – that a piece is fair and accurate and published without malice – against an offending article after a year time limit has expired.
This is all to be welcomed. After all the libel laws were created to right wrong and bring justice. Now, it sometimes seems that some powerful individuals and companies are using the laws as a means to gag critics. That was not their original intention. Look at some of the scandals recently reported in the news and twin the name with libel and search Google. It is interesting research.
My late wife had two important points on defamation.
I’ve indicated one in that she said be very careful about what you publish.
But also she said that you should never sue for it. Often you may feel that something nasty is being said about you in the papers. If you as a small individual challenge a large newspaper or company, you will rarely get redress. If say like one of her divorce clients, who wrongly featured on the front page of a tabloid, the best you can expect is an apology at the bottom of page eleven.
So be brave and turn the other cheek!
If At First You Don’t Succeed…
The full quote is.
If at first you don’t succeed, then try, try and try again.
Strangely, I can’t find the origin on the Internet, although there is a version, which adds “Then Quit” to the end.
But obviously, Prudence’s law officers don’t have quitting in mind, when they consider the case of three accused of a bomb plot to blow up airliners. They are dint to try, try, try and try again until they get the right result.
I don’t look at this with any view of justice, but it strikes me that if they’ve failed twice to get a conviction, that there’s every chance that a third attempt will fail. Especially, as it will be impossible to find a jury that has not heard of the case.
I think now is the time to give up!
Michael and Rochelle
Michael Shields, who was jailed for an attack in Bulgaria has now been released by the Home Secretary using his prerogative. The conviction was always dubious, especially when it involved such a horrendous offence. You just feel that in such cases, everyone should make their best efforts to get the right conviction. I don’t think they did here and preferred the anyone would do to discourage the others. I have not seen the evidence, but because that eminent organisation, Fair Trials International, have been supporting Mr. Shields, the conclusion is most likely just.
Rochelle Adams is a 19 year-old Canadian, who made the mistake of falling in love and getting married to Adam from Wales. In fact, she was just a few months younger than my late wife was when we got married in 1968, We succeeded and were married for 39 years until her untimely death.
A few years ago, Rochelle would have been allowed to stay in the United Kingdom, as is fit and proper for anybody setting out in that noble joining between two people. But because we must protect people against forced marriages, she can’t, and so Adam and Rochelle must start their married life for eighteen months five thousand kilometres apart until she is 21. She should then be able to get a spousal visa. Or one would hope so, but if Prudence’s disreputable bunch are still in power, you could imagine a different result.
Now the Home Secretary has the power under the Forced Marriages Act to allow Rochelle to stay. As the BBC says.
He had the discretion to let Mrs Wallis remain with her husband at their home near Aberystwyth but refused to do so because many other innocent victims may also be caught out by the same rule.
But he remains stubborn and is hiding behind the bureaucratic mess that has been created in the last few years. We need to protect against forced marriages, but there are better ways of doing it. After all one forced marriage case involved a thirty-year-old or so doctor! Did their Act help?
Perhaps though you can see his reasoning. Allow one exception and he’d have to allow many more because of a very badly drafted piece of legislation. And let’s face it Prudence and his cronies have been responsible for a lot of that!
Or could I just be cynical and say there are more Labour votes on Merseyside than in the Aberystwyth area?
Gary McKinnon and Aung San Suu Kyi
In Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi is being tried on a trumped up charge, that will probably put her out of the limelight and into a dark and brutal prison for ever.
Today, Gary McKinnon has been allowed to be extradited on a fast-track process to the USA, where if found guilty, he will probably be consigned into a dark and brutal prison for ever.
Nobody should be extradited from this country without a full hearing in the British Courts. And if the punishment that is likely to be imposed on conviction, is much higher than that in the UK, then the extradition should not be allowed.
But then Blair signed those rights away! And the United States have not kept their side of the bargain.
Assisted Suicide
Debbie Purdy has won a case in the House of Lords, which aims to get the law on assisted suicide clarified.
I’m all for complete freedom of personal action and I think that as it is our body, it is our decision what we do with it. And if someone helps us to commit suicide then so be it.
But what would actually happen now, if you helped your lifelong partner to commit suicide. The media is dominated by cases like that of Miss Purdy and others who have or want to go to Dignitas in Switzerland and none of these have resulted in any prosecution. But there are a few cases, although I can’t locate one at present, where the act has taken place in the UK and prosecution has occurred. My memory says that sentences have not been heavy.
I know quite a few judges, because my late wife was a barrister, and talk to them about cases like this and they will say that the reason there are so few prosecutions is that juries will not convict. There was a poll in The Times, which said that 74 % of people are in favour.
So to prosecute will just be a waste of public money, as well as not being the public interest.
But when my time is up, I will not be taking the early exit.
Why?
There is nothing there and even a very poor and painful life is better than no life at all.
Rural Crime in Suffolk Still Falling
This was the headline in Saturday’s East Anglian Daily Times. The article doesn’t seem to have been posted.
I’ve only had a couple of incidents in the last twenty years and these involved people nicking stuff from outbuildings where I lived.
The figure shows that in the whole of Suffolk, just 68.8 crimes were reported per 1,000 of the population, making it one of the lowest levels in the country.
The Police put it down to the work of Safer Neighbourhood Teams, but I actually wonder if the low levels of crime are for deeper reasons.
Suffolk is a pretty prosperous county and it has fairly low unemployment, so there are probably a lot fewer people who need to turn to crime. It also hasn’t until recently had a large student population and according to various writers, a lot of crime is around students, who are not as careful with their accommodation and possessions than most of us.
I travel to London a lot and you notice a very different attitude on the part of the Police you meet on the street between the Met and the Suffolk Constabulary. The former tends to be remote and aggressive, whilst my local force tries to act as part of the community and be reasonably pleasant. So is it just that in Suffolk, we give the Police the information they need. Ipswich certainly did that with the murders of several women a couple of years ago.
So there might be a lesson here.
Keep the Police forces small and local. Co-operate on a higher level by all means and use compatible systems, but do people prefer to deal with an officer, who is not just a policeman, but part of the community as well?
I think they do!
The Anonymous Widower 