Jack Straw's sick joke

Jack Straw's sick joke

"Labour's decade is liberty's best since the vote was won

Liberty and the state: A false orthodoxy seeks to deny the government's successes, but we have greatly improved people's rights and democracy".

"So let's take a look at the list. First, the Human Rights Act. We really did "bring rights home", as we said we would. At last British people have been able directly to access and to enforce positive rights in the British courts, rather than having to go to Strasbourg and wait for years in a queue".

Following the passing of the HRA (1998), I thought I would test this claim made by Jack Straw. In theory, what he states is right. In practice, I stumbled across the corruption of politicians and judges. It should have been a simple matter, "During the passage through Parliament of the Representation of the
People Act 2000, which permitted remand prisoners and unconvicted mental
patients to vote, Mr Howarth MP, speaking for the Government, maintained
the view that “it should be part of a convicted prisoner’s punishment that he
loses rights and one of them is the right to vote”. The Act was accompanied
by a statement of compatibility under section 19 of the Human Rights Act
1998, namely, a statement that in introducing the measure in Parliament the
Secretary of State considered its provisions to be compatible with the
Convention". What George Howarth should have done had he not have been corrupt was to declare that Section 3 of the Representation Act (1983) was incompatible with the HRA (1998). And, it should have been a simple matter of going to court and pointing out this incompatibility to a judge and asking for and being granted a declaration of incompatibility. Then the government could have drafted a Bill to amend legislation and put it before Parliament to change the law. But, no, instead I came across two corrupt judges, Lord Justice Simon Brown and Lord Justice Kennedy. Therefore, although I was able to access British courts, I was unable to enforce positive rights in the British courts and had no option but to go abroad to Strasbourg to claim the rights I was being denied at home.

The CASE OF HIRST v. THE UNITED KINGDOM (NO. 2) was decided in my favour. It should have been a simple matter for Jack Straw's predecessor, Lord Falconer, to honour the UK's obligation to the European Convention by implementing the ECtHR's decision. However, Lord Falconer's corruption intervened.

Jack Straw now has the opportunity to set the record straight and stop the corruption by introducing a draft Bill to facilitate convicted prisoners having the postal vote. However, it would appear that his sick joke which is the article he has written for the Guardian indicates that the age of corruption is not over and that he intends to be just as corrupt as the Minister of Justice as those I have named and shamed in this post.