Ken Clarke and Nick Clegg in legal trouble
For immediate release
R (on the application of) John Hirst v Secretary of State for Justice
(Interested party the Association of Prisoners)
According to The Times 20 September 2010: “The Deputy Prime Minister took responsibility for the issue from Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, in July”. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/article2732551.ece
The issue in question is fully complying with the judgment in Hirst v UK (No2).
However, according to the MoJ website: “We are also responsible for making new laws, strengthening democracy, modernising the constitution and safeguarding human rights”. http://www.justice.gov.uk/about.htm
Therefore, it is contended that Kenneth Clarke acted ultra vires by seeking to avoid the responsibility of ensuring that all citizens in the UK are guaranteed the human rights under the Convention.
The applicant is seeking an urgent interim injunction pursuant to s.6(1) of the HRA 1998 to stop a public authority from breaching an established human right under the Convention. In addition, seeking an order quashing the said decision. And an Order of Mandamus to force the Sec of State to do his duty. Finally, declarations that s.3 of RPA 1983, and HRA 1998 are incompatible with the Convention.
Ends
Contact:
John Hirst
5 Adderbury Crescent
Adderbury Grove
Hull
HU5 1AT
landline: (01482) 341281
john.hirst@myhaven.karoo.co.uk
mobile: 07757299845
jailhouselawyer@virginmedia.blackberry.com
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Former Conservative peer denies falsely claiming £24,300 in expenses scandal
Former Conservative peer denies falsely claiming £24,300 in expenses scandal
Home Staff (The Times £)
Last updated September 30 2010 12:01AM
A former Conservative peer has denied dishonestly claiming more than £24,300 in overnight subsistence and mileage.
Lord Taylor of Warwick, 58, appeared at Southwark Crown Court, London, after being charged over the parliamentary expenses scandal. He pleaded not guilty to six counts of false accounting relating to his second home. He did not stand in the dock but made his plea from the courtroom.
The first charge alleges that on or around March 31, 2006, he dishonestly submitted claims for overnight subsistence and car mileage, stating that his main home was outside London when he lived in the capital.
The five other charges allege that similar claims were made on July 3 and October 31, 2006, and April 5, July 2 and October 31, 2007.
As Lord Taylor, whose full name is John David Beckett Taylor, began to move from his seat at the back of court to the dock to make his plea, Mr Justice Saunders intervened and said: “He can do it from there. It’s all right.”
The court was told that three former Labour MPs who are charged over expenses allegations are likely to stand trial from November 22.
David Chaytor, Elliot Morley and Jim Devine, who were not in court, all deny theft by false accounting.
Mr Chaytor, 60, the former Bury North MP, of Todmorden, West Yorkshire; Mr Morley, 58, the ex-Scunthorpe MP, of Winterton, north Lincolnshire and Mr Devine, 57, of Bathgate, West Lothian, formerly MP for Livingston, are all on bail preceeding separate trials at Southwark Crown Court.
Lord Hanningfield, the former Conservative peer, and Eric Illsley, the former Labour MP, have also been charged over the scandal.
Both deny any wrongdoing and are likely to stand trial early next year.
Home Staff (The Times £)
Last updated September 30 2010 12:01AM
A former Conservative peer has denied dishonestly claiming more than £24,300 in overnight subsistence and mileage.
Lord Taylor of Warwick, 58, appeared at Southwark Crown Court, London, after being charged over the parliamentary expenses scandal. He pleaded not guilty to six counts of false accounting relating to his second home. He did not stand in the dock but made his plea from the courtroom.
The first charge alleges that on or around March 31, 2006, he dishonestly submitted claims for overnight subsistence and car mileage, stating that his main home was outside London when he lived in the capital.
The five other charges allege that similar claims were made on July 3 and October 31, 2006, and April 5, July 2 and October 31, 2007.
As Lord Taylor, whose full name is John David Beckett Taylor, began to move from his seat at the back of court to the dock to make his plea, Mr Justice Saunders intervened and said: “He can do it from there. It’s all right.”
The court was told that three former Labour MPs who are charged over expenses allegations are likely to stand trial from November 22.
David Chaytor, Elliot Morley and Jim Devine, who were not in court, all deny theft by false accounting.
Mr Chaytor, 60, the former Bury North MP, of Todmorden, West Yorkshire; Mr Morley, 58, the ex-Scunthorpe MP, of Winterton, north Lincolnshire and Mr Devine, 57, of Bathgate, West Lothian, formerly MP for Livingston, are all on bail preceeding separate trials at Southwark Crown Court.
Lord Hanningfield, the former Conservative peer, and Eric Illsley, the former Labour MP, have also been charged over the scandal.
Both deny any wrongdoing and are likely to stand trial early next year.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tony Bliar and Billy Liar on their wrongs and human rights
Tony Bliar and Billy Liar on their wrongs and human rights
Preface by the Prime Minister
The Government is pledged to modernise British politics. We are committed to a comprehensive programme of constitutional reform. We believe it is right to increase individual rights, to decentralise power, to open up government and to reform Parliament.
The elements are well known:
* a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly giving the people of Scotland and Wales more control over their own affairs within the United Kingdom;
* new rights, based on bringing the European Convention on Human Rights into United Kingdom law;
* an elected Mayor and new strategic authority for London with more accountability in the regions of England;
* freedom of information;
* a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons; and
* reform of the House of Lords.
This White Paper explains the proposals contained in the Human Rights Bill which we are introducing into Parliament. The Bill marks a major step forward in the achievement of our programme of reform. It will give people in the United Kingdom opportunities to enforce their rights under the European Convention in British courts rather than having to incur the cost and delay of taking a case to the European Human Rights Commission and Court in Strasbourg. It will enhance the awareness of human rights in our society. And it stands alongside our decision to put the promotion of human rights at the forefront of our foreign policy.
I warmly commend these proposals to Parliament and to the people of this country.
TONY BLAIR
Britain’s Foreign Policy in a Networked World
01 July 2010
The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, gave the following speech outlining the Government's vision for UK foreign policy on 1 July 2010.
Speaker: The Foreign Secretary William Hague
Location: The Locarno Room, The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London.
"Our foreign policy should always have consistent support for human rights and poverty reduction at its irreducible core and we should always strive to act with moral authority, recognising that once that is damaged it is hard to restore".
Tony Bliar and Billy Liar. It is intended to subject them as to what they have both said, and compare and contrast this with the reality by applying the Hirst test.
(More to follow)
Preface by the Prime Minister
The Government is pledged to modernise British politics. We are committed to a comprehensive programme of constitutional reform. We believe it is right to increase individual rights, to decentralise power, to open up government and to reform Parliament.
The elements are well known:
* a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly giving the people of Scotland and Wales more control over their own affairs within the United Kingdom;
* new rights, based on bringing the European Convention on Human Rights into United Kingdom law;
* an elected Mayor and new strategic authority for London with more accountability in the regions of England;
* freedom of information;
* a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons; and
* reform of the House of Lords.
This White Paper explains the proposals contained in the Human Rights Bill which we are introducing into Parliament. The Bill marks a major step forward in the achievement of our programme of reform. It will give people in the United Kingdom opportunities to enforce their rights under the European Convention in British courts rather than having to incur the cost and delay of taking a case to the European Human Rights Commission and Court in Strasbourg. It will enhance the awareness of human rights in our society. And it stands alongside our decision to put the promotion of human rights at the forefront of our foreign policy.
I warmly commend these proposals to Parliament and to the people of this country.
TONY BLAIR
Britain’s Foreign Policy in a Networked World
01 July 2010
The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, gave the following speech outlining the Government's vision for UK foreign policy on 1 July 2010.
Speaker: The Foreign Secretary William Hague
Location: The Locarno Room, The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London.
"Our foreign policy should always have consistent support for human rights and poverty reduction at its irreducible core and we should always strive to act with moral authority, recognising that once that is damaged it is hard to restore".
Tony Bliar and Billy Liar. It is intended to subject them as to what they have both said, and compare and contrast this with the reality by applying the Hirst test.
(More to follow)
Judge attacks CPS 'shambles'
Judge attacks CPS 'shambles'
An Old Bailey judge today spoke out about the "shambles" in the criminal justice system caused by "failures by the Crown Prosecution Service".
Judge Jeremy Roberts made the remarks after blunders meant he had to put back the trial of a man accused of a violent offence 18 months ago.
He apologised to the defendant and said it was not the first case in which mistakes by the CPS had caused problems.
The judge ordered a transcript of the hearing to be sent to the Lord Chancellor and the Director of Public Prosecutions "so that they can see what has been happening in the courts".
He said: "It just simply looks awful to members of the public who come to these courts expecting to see justice done and cases heard properly, and then they see the kind of shambles which has occurred in this case and others."
The judge told the defendant, who is on bail: "I am sorry your case can't go ahead today. It is not a good advertisement for our criminal justice system that this has happened."
The case was put back because of problems with witnesses and failure to disclose evidence to the defence.
Judge Roberts said: "I am sure this won't be the last case where we have similar problems."
An Old Bailey judge today spoke out about the "shambles" in the criminal justice system caused by "failures by the Crown Prosecution Service".
Judge Jeremy Roberts made the remarks after blunders meant he had to put back the trial of a man accused of a violent offence 18 months ago.
He apologised to the defendant and said it was not the first case in which mistakes by the CPS had caused problems.
The judge ordered a transcript of the hearing to be sent to the Lord Chancellor and the Director of Public Prosecutions "so that they can see what has been happening in the courts".
He said: "It just simply looks awful to members of the public who come to these courts expecting to see justice done and cases heard properly, and then they see the kind of shambles which has occurred in this case and others."
The judge told the defendant, who is on bail: "I am sorry your case can't go ahead today. It is not a good advertisement for our criminal justice system that this has happened."
The case was put back because of problems with witnesses and failure to disclose evidence to the defence.
Judge Roberts said: "I am sure this won't be the last case where we have similar problems."
Archbishop of York: Jail risks creating 'underclass'
Archbishop of York: Jail risks creating 'underclass'
Jailing more people and for longer risks creating an “underclass” in Britain, according to the Archbishop of York.
By Martin Beckford
Published: 7:00AM BST 29 Sep 2010
Dr John Sentamu claimed that keeping criminals locked up does not help them or society, and that the country should be “pained and troubled” by the record size of its prison population.
He said that crime damages offenders and communities as well as victims, and urged young people to be taught that they have responsibilities towards others.
His comments come as the Coalition grapples with how best to tackle crime. Under the last Conservative government, Michael Howard, then the Home Secretary, famously declared that “prison works”.
But although the crime rate has fallen since the 1990s while the number behind bars in England and Wales reached a record high of 85,368 last week, the new Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, believes that fewer short sentences should be handed down and that more attention should be paid to rehabilitation.
Dr Sentamu, the second-most senior cleric in the Church of England who was once a senior judge in Uganda, questioned the deterrent effect of imprisonment at a lecture for the Prisoners Education Trust on Tuesday evening.
He said: “We should be pained and troubled by the size of our prison population in Britain, the sheer number of individuals who have given up on community – and feel that community has given up on them.
“Putting more and more people away behind locked doors, for longer and longer sentences, does not help society. Neither does it help the individual. What we need is to educate people about how they can be better citizens – not encouraging people to turn their back on society, as some sort of perceived underclass.”
The Archbishop went on: “In modern culture, the rights of the individual are now paramount – but you cannot have these rights without obligations and responsibilities.
“We need to get back to valuing ourselves and our neighbours – and understanding that there is a cost involved when a crime is committed. A cost to the criminal, a cost to the victim and a cost to the community.”
Jailing more people and for longer risks creating an “underclass” in Britain, according to the Archbishop of York.
By Martin Beckford
Published: 7:00AM BST 29 Sep 2010
Dr John Sentamu claimed that keeping criminals locked up does not help them or society, and that the country should be “pained and troubled” by the record size of its prison population.
He said that crime damages offenders and communities as well as victims, and urged young people to be taught that they have responsibilities towards others.
His comments come as the Coalition grapples with how best to tackle crime. Under the last Conservative government, Michael Howard, then the Home Secretary, famously declared that “prison works”.
But although the crime rate has fallen since the 1990s while the number behind bars in England and Wales reached a record high of 85,368 last week, the new Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, believes that fewer short sentences should be handed down and that more attention should be paid to rehabilitation.
Dr Sentamu, the second-most senior cleric in the Church of England who was once a senior judge in Uganda, questioned the deterrent effect of imprisonment at a lecture for the Prisoners Education Trust on Tuesday evening.
He said: “We should be pained and troubled by the size of our prison population in Britain, the sheer number of individuals who have given up on community – and feel that community has given up on them.
“Putting more and more people away behind locked doors, for longer and longer sentences, does not help society. Neither does it help the individual. What we need is to educate people about how they can be better citizens – not encouraging people to turn their back on society, as some sort of perceived underclass.”
The Archbishop went on: “In modern culture, the rights of the individual are now paramount – but you cannot have these rights without obligations and responsibilities.
“We need to get back to valuing ourselves and our neighbours – and understanding that there is a cost involved when a crime is committed. A cost to the criminal, a cost to the victim and a cost to the community.”
Judge sues Zimbabwe opposition politician Roy Bennett for libel
Judge sues Zimbabwe opposition politician Roy Bennett for libel
Jan Raath Harare
Last updated September 29 2010 12:01AM
Roy Bennett, the leading Zimbabwean opposition politician, is being sued for libel by the judge who tried him for terrorism earlier this year.
Judge Chinembiri Bhunu is demanding US$1 million in damages for Mr Bennett’s claim that the trial was rigged. He was, in fact, acquitted.
The day before the verdict of his terrorism trial in May, The Guardian website quoted him as saying that he fully expected to be found guilty, despite every sign that that the case was another trumped-up affair by President Mugabe’s Central Intelligence Organisation.
Zimbabwe’s judiciary was “totally compromised,” Mr Bennett was quoted as saying, while the judge trying him “is the owner of a farm [seized from its white owner] that he’s been given through political patronage.”
Judge Bhunu has been allocated a farm, its owner, Bruce Campbell, confirmed yesterday. It comprises the homestead, tobacco barns and some land on a section of Carruthersville farm in the Marondera district, 80km east of Harare. He was driven off in 2002, one of first white farmers in the area to be targeted.
Before the judge moved in last year, it was occupied by the permanent secretary in the Justice Ministry, who gave it up so that he could take over a second farm, in the country’s midlands, Mr Campbell said.
He used to keep cattle and grew tobacco, seed maize and barley. Now, he said, apart from perhaps four hectares of winter wheat, “the rest of the farm has got nothing, absolutely nothing.”
In court papers published here yesterday, Judge Bhunu said that Mr Bennett had defamed him by implying that he was “not a fit and proper person” to be judge, and that his judicial integrity had been compromised by the allocation of a farm to him. Mr Bennett was given ten days in which to defend himself, or have the matter dealt with forthwith by the High Court.
Beatrice Mtetwa, his lawyer, said that she could not comment until she had spoken to Mr Bennett, who was in Canada, and that she did not know how to contact him.
The International Bar Association and others have condemned Mr Mugabe’s “packing” of the judiciary with cronies and then rewarding them with farms grabbed from their white owners. At least four of the eight Supreme Court judges have been given farms.
Last year a judge who ordered the release of torture victims had his farm taken from him as punishment.
Over the past ten years Mr Mugabe has gone to extraordinary lengths to end Mr Bennett’s political career, if not his life. He was violently ejected from his farm, jailed for eight months for a minor scuffle in Parliament, had to flee into exile ahead of the secret police and returned last year to arrested hours before he was due to be sworn in as a minister of the new coalition Government.
Related content...
MDC stalwart Roy Bennett acquitted on terrorism charges
Jan Raath Harare
Last updated May 11 2010 12:01AM
A key ally of Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean Prime Minister, was unexpectedly acquitted on charges of terrorism yesterday in a ruling that challenges President Mugabe’s grip on power.
Roy Bennett, one of the top three officials in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had been accused of possessing arms for purposes of terrorism, banditry and sabotage. Prosecutors said he planned to fund a plot to murder government officials.
Mr Bennett, who would have faced the death penalty if convicted, was arrested in February 2009 when Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai were being sworn in as the heads of the power-sharing coalition.
The President had refused to swear in Mr Bennett, a former white farmer, as deputy agriculture minister until he had been acquitted.
“I didn’t expect it. Good has triumphed over evil,” Mr Bennett said as he left the High Court at the end of his eight-month trial. Scenes of elation greeted Judge Chinembiri Bhunu’s declaration that the State had failed to prove any of its charges. Some of the evidence against Mr Bennett reduced the public gallery to laughter.
“It’s good news, it’s very positive,” Mr Tsvangirai told reporters in Washington, where he learnt of Mr Bennett’s acquittal. “He’s not being prosecuted, he’s being persecuted. I hope that the persecution has ended.”
Mr Mugabe’s refusal to install Mr Bennett became one of the main obstacles in the stalled administration of the MDC and Zanu (PF), a deadlock that President Zuma of South Africa has struggled to break. But the acquittal is unlikely to make the President more willing to swear in the MDC politician — a fluent speaker of the dominant Shona language and a popular figure.
In 2004 Mr Bennett was sentenced by Parliament to a year in jail for jostling a Zanu (PF) minister, an offence that in a magistrates’ court would have earned him a small fine. In his latest trial the Attorney-General submitted statements obtained under torture from Michael Hitschmann, a French-born arms trader charged in 2006 with plotting to assassinate Mr Mugabe. The discredited statements were resurrected with Mr Bennett’s name inserted while Mr Hitschmann was named the star witness. But the attempt to rig the trial failed spectacularly when Mr Hitschmann denied any links to Mr Bennett.
When state lawyers produced an “expert” to testify on the validity of alleged e-mails between the two men, the judge said the witness had only just scraped through his O levels and “the depth of his ignorance was amazing, to say the least”.
Jan Raath Harare
Last updated September 29 2010 12:01AM
Roy Bennett, the leading Zimbabwean opposition politician, is being sued for libel by the judge who tried him for terrorism earlier this year.
Judge Chinembiri Bhunu is demanding US$1 million in damages for Mr Bennett’s claim that the trial was rigged. He was, in fact, acquitted.
The day before the verdict of his terrorism trial in May, The Guardian website quoted him as saying that he fully expected to be found guilty, despite every sign that that the case was another trumped-up affair by President Mugabe’s Central Intelligence Organisation.
Zimbabwe’s judiciary was “totally compromised,” Mr Bennett was quoted as saying, while the judge trying him “is the owner of a farm [seized from its white owner] that he’s been given through political patronage.”
Judge Bhunu has been allocated a farm, its owner, Bruce Campbell, confirmed yesterday. It comprises the homestead, tobacco barns and some land on a section of Carruthersville farm in the Marondera district, 80km east of Harare. He was driven off in 2002, one of first white farmers in the area to be targeted.
Before the judge moved in last year, it was occupied by the permanent secretary in the Justice Ministry, who gave it up so that he could take over a second farm, in the country’s midlands, Mr Campbell said.
He used to keep cattle and grew tobacco, seed maize and barley. Now, he said, apart from perhaps four hectares of winter wheat, “the rest of the farm has got nothing, absolutely nothing.”
In court papers published here yesterday, Judge Bhunu said that Mr Bennett had defamed him by implying that he was “not a fit and proper person” to be judge, and that his judicial integrity had been compromised by the allocation of a farm to him. Mr Bennett was given ten days in which to defend himself, or have the matter dealt with forthwith by the High Court.
Beatrice Mtetwa, his lawyer, said that she could not comment until she had spoken to Mr Bennett, who was in Canada, and that she did not know how to contact him.
The International Bar Association and others have condemned Mr Mugabe’s “packing” of the judiciary with cronies and then rewarding them with farms grabbed from their white owners. At least four of the eight Supreme Court judges have been given farms.
Last year a judge who ordered the release of torture victims had his farm taken from him as punishment.
Over the past ten years Mr Mugabe has gone to extraordinary lengths to end Mr Bennett’s political career, if not his life. He was violently ejected from his farm, jailed for eight months for a minor scuffle in Parliament, had to flee into exile ahead of the secret police and returned last year to arrested hours before he was due to be sworn in as a minister of the new coalition Government.
Related content...
MDC stalwart Roy Bennett acquitted on terrorism charges
Jan Raath Harare
Last updated May 11 2010 12:01AM
A key ally of Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean Prime Minister, was unexpectedly acquitted on charges of terrorism yesterday in a ruling that challenges President Mugabe’s grip on power.
Roy Bennett, one of the top three officials in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had been accused of possessing arms for purposes of terrorism, banditry and sabotage. Prosecutors said he planned to fund a plot to murder government officials.
Mr Bennett, who would have faced the death penalty if convicted, was arrested in February 2009 when Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai were being sworn in as the heads of the power-sharing coalition.
The President had refused to swear in Mr Bennett, a former white farmer, as deputy agriculture minister until he had been acquitted.
“I didn’t expect it. Good has triumphed over evil,” Mr Bennett said as he left the High Court at the end of his eight-month trial. Scenes of elation greeted Judge Chinembiri Bhunu’s declaration that the State had failed to prove any of its charges. Some of the evidence against Mr Bennett reduced the public gallery to laughter.
“It’s good news, it’s very positive,” Mr Tsvangirai told reporters in Washington, where he learnt of Mr Bennett’s acquittal. “He’s not being prosecuted, he’s being persecuted. I hope that the persecution has ended.”
Mr Mugabe’s refusal to install Mr Bennett became one of the main obstacles in the stalled administration of the MDC and Zanu (PF), a deadlock that President Zuma of South Africa has struggled to break. But the acquittal is unlikely to make the President more willing to swear in the MDC politician — a fluent speaker of the dominant Shona language and a popular figure.
In 2004 Mr Bennett was sentenced by Parliament to a year in jail for jostling a Zanu (PF) minister, an offence that in a magistrates’ court would have earned him a small fine. In his latest trial the Attorney-General submitted statements obtained under torture from Michael Hitschmann, a French-born arms trader charged in 2006 with plotting to assassinate Mr Mugabe. The discredited statements were resurrected with Mr Bennett’s name inserted while Mr Hitschmann was named the star witness. But the attempt to rig the trial failed spectacularly when Mr Hitschmann denied any links to Mr Bennett.
When state lawyers produced an “expert” to testify on the validity of alleged e-mails between the two men, the judge said the witness had only just scraped through his O levels and “the depth of his ignorance was amazing, to say the least”.
'Clown' close to winning a seat in Brazil parliament
'Clown' close to winning a seat in Brazil parliament
A humorist known for dressing as a clown and poking fun at politics is running as a candidate in the Brazilian election, and has a good chance of being successful.
This may be news for Brazil, however, in the UK we have been electing and allowing some clowns in Parliament for centuries...
A humorist known for dressing as a clown and poking fun at politics is running as a candidate in the Brazilian election, and has a good chance of being successful.
This may be news for Brazil, however, in the UK we have been electing and allowing some clowns in Parliament for centuries...
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Alan Johnson makes a cunt of himself!
Alan Johnson makes a cunt of himself!
Alan Johnson's speech to Labour Party Conference
"Then I heard that Nick Clegg wants to give prisoners the vote and it suddenly made sense.
This isn't a crime policy - it's an election strategy!".
For 5 years whilst Alan Johnson was in power the Labour government ignored the European Court of Human Rights decision in Hirst v UK (No2), which stated that all convicted prisoners must have the vote. Labour may have not wanted to give prisoners the vote, but to do so would have been the right thing. Therefore, Alan Johnson's snide remark is unjustified. He should not only apologise but also hang his head in shame!
Alan Johnson's speech to Labour Party Conference
"Then I heard that Nick Clegg wants to give prisoners the vote and it suddenly made sense.
This isn't a crime policy - it's an election strategy!".
For 5 years whilst Alan Johnson was in power the Labour government ignored the European Court of Human Rights decision in Hirst v UK (No2), which stated that all convicted prisoners must have the vote. Labour may have not wanted to give prisoners the vote, but to do so would have been the right thing. Therefore, Alan Johnson's snide remark is unjustified. He should not only apologise but also hang his head in shame!
Court napping, the magistrate who fell asleep at the bench
Court napping, the magistrate who fell asleep at the bench
By Wesley Johnson, Press Association
A magistrate has been removed from office after he fell asleep on the bench, causing an assault trial to collapse, the Office for Judicial Complaints said yesterday.
John Harrison, a former city councillor, claimed he was just resting his eyes during the first day of the trial at Lancaster magistrates' court in March last year. But after discussions with his colleagues and a court official he decided to halt the case after a day and a half.
An investigation was launched after the mother of the 17-year-old defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, complained about the magistrate's behaviour and an application to this effect was made by the defence solicitor.
The inquiry found the behaviour of Mr Harrison, who had been a magistrate since 1997, "risked bringing the magistracy into disrepute" and he was removed.
At the time, the magistrate told a local newspaper: "I was not asleep, but I rested my eyes for five minutes or so. It was just a normal reaction in the middle of the afternoon. The court was warm – the heating was on and the sun was pouring in through the window.
"I was still listening to the defence solicitor speaking to the defendant and I was able to take down some notes related to what was said." He added that he was considering raising the issue of humidity in the courtroom at a meeting of the Lancaster bench.
But in a statement yesterday, the Office for Judicial Complaints said: "Following a complaint about Mr Harrison's conduct in a Lancaster youth court a conduct investigation panel found that his behaviour risked bringing the magistracy into disrepute and recommended Mr Harrison be removed from judicial office.
"The Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor accepted the recommendation to remove Mr Harrison from the magistracy."
Comment: At my first oral Parole Board hearing the psychiatrist member on the panel fell asleep after a liquid lunch. He was supposed to be assessing whether I posed an unacceptable risk to the public to be released. I challenged the decision not to release me, and Lord Bingham, MR, rejected my appeal. The only consolation being that the psychiatrist was later sacked from the Parole Board.
By Wesley Johnson, Press Association
A magistrate has been removed from office after he fell asleep on the bench, causing an assault trial to collapse, the Office for Judicial Complaints said yesterday.
John Harrison, a former city councillor, claimed he was just resting his eyes during the first day of the trial at Lancaster magistrates' court in March last year. But after discussions with his colleagues and a court official he decided to halt the case after a day and a half.
An investigation was launched after the mother of the 17-year-old defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, complained about the magistrate's behaviour and an application to this effect was made by the defence solicitor.
The inquiry found the behaviour of Mr Harrison, who had been a magistrate since 1997, "risked bringing the magistracy into disrepute" and he was removed.
At the time, the magistrate told a local newspaper: "I was not asleep, but I rested my eyes for five minutes or so. It was just a normal reaction in the middle of the afternoon. The court was warm – the heating was on and the sun was pouring in through the window.
"I was still listening to the defence solicitor speaking to the defendant and I was able to take down some notes related to what was said." He added that he was considering raising the issue of humidity in the courtroom at a meeting of the Lancaster bench.
But in a statement yesterday, the Office for Judicial Complaints said: "Following a complaint about Mr Harrison's conduct in a Lancaster youth court a conduct investigation panel found that his behaviour risked bringing the magistracy into disrepute and recommended Mr Harrison be removed from judicial office.
"The Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor accepted the recommendation to remove Mr Harrison from the magistracy."
Comment: At my first oral Parole Board hearing the psychiatrist member on the panel fell asleep after a liquid lunch. He was supposed to be assessing whether I posed an unacceptable risk to the public to be released. I challenged the decision not to release me, and Lord Bingham, MR, rejected my appeal. The only consolation being that the psychiatrist was later sacked from the Parole Board.
Robbing the Vote
Robbing the Vote
Why the current plan to take the right to vote away from prisoners is a terrible idea
by Gordon Campbell
Rick Sauve was a high school dropout. Back in the day, one of his teachers told him he was stupid, that he’d never finish high school and might as well quit – so he took the comments to heart, and left. Eventually, he became a young prospect for the Satan’s Choice biker gang in Port Hope, Ontario. One night in 1978 a drunk and threatening armed member of a rival bike gang got shot in a local bar – and Sauve and five other members of Satan’s Choice in the bar at the time got convicted of murder in a still-controversial trial, and were sent to prison for life.
That’s not what Sauve is known for in Canada, though. In 2002, after 18 years of campaigning (much of it done from behind bars) Sauve won a landmark victory. It took him two separate trips to the Supreme Court to do it, but he and his lawyer Chip O’Connor won the right for prisoners in Canada to vote.
Now 58, Sauve works these days for Lifeline, an innovative programme launched by the Canadian corrections system that enables lifers on parole to go back into prison to offer counseling and parole assistance to prisoners and warders alike. More than anything, Lifeline provides a personal and positive example to inmates currently serving life sentences, that there is hope for a life beyond prison.
Why did winning the right to vote matter so much to him? “Well,” he begins, “when I was sent to prison I was a father, still. I had a daughter. I was married. I had a family. I had always exercised my right to vote. So, even though I was sent to prison it didn’t stop me from having an interest in my community, and in the fact that I had a family in the community. I had a sister who was in the Air Force, so I cared about how our foreign policy affected her. My brothers and sisters with their kids – and with my own daughter going to school – meant that the education system still applied. So, even though I was in prison, it didn’t mean that I wasn’t still a part of my community. “
Obviously though, most bikers who get sent to prison for life on a murder count don’t end up bringing about constitutional change in their country. One key factor that made it possible for him was the passing of the Canadian Charter of Rights in 1982. Unlike our own flimsy Bill of Rights, the Canadian document is embedded, constitutionally – it sets out what are virtually inalienable rights. “ So, when the Charter came in I saw in section three that every citizen had the right to vote. I was still a citizen of Canada, and it was something I’d always exercised in the past. Since I hadn’t been stripped of my citizenship, it was enshrined in the Constitution that it was a right. So that’s when I got a hold of Chip O’Connor, and said I’d like to challenge this.”
The ups and downs of Sauve’s legal battle are still highly relevant to the New Zealand situation. Since 1993, New Zealand has denied the vote to serious offenders serving sentences of three years or more. This year, an idiotic and spiteful private members Bill sponsored by National MP Paul Quinn plans to extend that ban, and to deny the right to vote to every prisoner in a New Zealand jail. (More on that later.)
Initially, Sauve (pictured left) had lost in the lower court and won on appeal in the Supreme Court. At which point, he says, the Canadian government accepted that it couldn’t deny the vote to all prisoners, so it tried to set an arbitrary moral yardstick akin to New Zealand’s current position – and proposed that serious offenders serving sentences of five years or more would be barred, which would have knocked Sauve out of contention. Sauve went back to court, and won his case. By a narrow majority, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled in effect, that the right to vote is a virtually absolute right that is basic to being a citizen of the country.
Since then, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg – in a case brought by the British prisoner John Hirst in 2005 – has reached the same conclusion.
Article 25 of the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights – an international agreement that New Zealand formally recognises – also acknowledges that citizens have the right to vote, without unreasonable restrictions. In Britain, denying prisoners the vote is a relic of the Victorian era, a consequence of the Forfeiture Act passed in 1870. In similar fashion, our current three- year sentence ban is already out of step with the trend of enlightened international opinion and practice, while the Paul Quinn private member’s Bill sits beyond that again – as a gratuitous pandering to the redneck fringe.
On this score at least, Canada has risen above its punitive worst impulses. By the time he was paroled in 1995, Sauve was the first Canadian prisoner to earn a university degree while serving a life sentence. He now holds three such degrees in total : a degree in psychology, an honours BA in criminology and a master’s degree in criminology from Ottawa University. As he says, those academic credentials have meant that he had something else to offer when he was released – and something more to talk about with employers than if he’d walked out of the prison gates after 16 years with only a few bucks in his back pocket. For most ex-cons, that’s not a platform for any kind of success.
“The best thing I got from education was the ability to learn,” he says.” and to think outside the box. And if I could do education while I was in prison, that allowed me to be a student, rather than a prisoner. So, with that kind of philosophy when I come back into the community I wasn’t coming back as a paroled prisoner. I was coming back as someone who thought that he not only had some formal education but also some skills, through which I thought I could make it.” That route was not easy at the time, and isn’t getting any easier, he explains, : most courses require an access to a computer that prisoners don’t have, so the whole thing has to be done by correspondence.
That drive to rebuild confidence and motivation remains a major element in his Lifeline work today, he explains. As he describes it, the work entails giving to others – people facing constant messages that they’re failures and rejects, and who doubt they will ever find a place within the community again– some degree of hope that instead, it is possible to come back, and to have a life.
The main argument against prisoners being allowed to vote is that their crime has cancelled out their right to be considered part of society. That argument, Sauve points out, lacks any value as a deterrent. “When people are committing a crime, most people are not thinking about the rights that they’re going to lose. They’re thinking about how they can avoid getting caught. If people already feel they don’t fit into society and that they’re rebelling against society – well, the better way of trying to encourage them to take part in society again is to encourage them actively, to vote – and to have a say within society.’
‘ The one thing I noticed after we got the right to vote was when every election came about, guys in the dining hall or the ranges were actually talking about politics. And not necessarily talking about the beefs they were in, or stuff like that.” Not everyone in prison does exercise their vote, he adds, just as not everyone does in the community at large – but in his experience, prisoners do talk about the elections.
Even so, getting sent to prison means that people lose their right to a whole range of rights and freedoms. Why should the right to vote be held up as something sacrosanct? “You go to prison for a punishment,” Sauve replies. “ That is your punishment : the loss of freedom of movement. It really is severe. When you’re locked in your cell at night and you are all alone, that’s when you realize you’re really doing time. That’s also when you think about how you want to fit back into the community. I wanted to be able to fit back in. I wanted to show that I could make it, that I could be something other than my crime…”
By contrast, the removal of the right to vote is – he agrees – a way of saying to the prisoner that he or she is literally, a non-person. Given that most prisoners will one day be returning to society, how could it possibly be in society’s self interest to promote such an attitude? “I don’t think it is,” Sauve replies. “ I know that a lot of people want revenge. They don’t necessarily want justice. ‘
‘I think that many people don’t seem to realize though, that prisons are a community. It is a small community but it is one, all the same. A lot of people do charity work while they are in prison. Does it mean that people in prison shouldn’t be allowed to help other people? That they shouldn’t be entitled to healthcare? Or that someone in prison shouldn’t be allowed to have contact with their family, who are out in the community? No, we don’t isolate people like that. Not any more. What we hope for as a society is that people – when they are inside prison – are going to start to embrace the norms of the free world. But if instead, you continuously tell people : we don’t want you ; you’re not one of us ; you shouldn’t have this, you shouldn’t have that…. Well, people constantly hearing that message are likely to act out. They really are.“
Paul Quinn (left) could be expected to know better. Before becoming a National list MP, he did an economics degree at Lincoln University, worked as an analyst at the Reserve Bank, represented Ngati Awa in its Treaty claim and helped to manage their Treaty settlement, and is a former director of the New Zealand Rugby Union.
Not that you’d suspect any of this from his private member’s Bill, which has been roundly criticized by everyone from the Law Society to the Human Rights Commission to his own caucus colleague, the Attorney– General, Chris Finlayson. In his report on the Bill’s (in)consistency with the Bill of Rights Act (aka BORA). Finlayson indicated that a blanket ban on prisoner voting would be inconsistent with section 12 of our Bill of Rights legislation. This section says that every citizen over the age of 18 has the right to vote and to stand for parliamentary office – apart from a fairly set reasons set out in section 5 of the same Act, which the Quinn Bill failed to meet, according to Finlayson. In fact, he argued, the supposed objective of the Bill – to deter serious offending – was ‘not rationally linked’ to the Bill’s own provisions to impose a blanket ban on prisoner voting. Reason being, serious offenders are already banned from voting by the existing law. As for everyone else : “ It is questionable that every person sentenced to any period of punishment is a serious offender. People who are not serious offenders will be disenfranchised…” The blanket ban, Finlayson concluded, cannot be justified.
Having pointed out the irrationality of the Quinn Bill, Finlayson then went further, to show how unjust it would play out in practice. The avowed purpose of the Bill is to deter serious offending. Yet under its provisions someone sentenced to home detention would still be able to vote, but someone sentenced to jail for the very same offence would be disenfranchised. Moreover, a serious violent offender sentenced to two and half years in jail would not lose their right to vote if their sentence fell – purely by chance – into the period between elections. Yet by the same token, someone sentenced to a week in jail for not paying their parking fines would lose their right to vote, if they were unlucky enough to be sentenced at the wrong point in the electoral cycle. Justice, to state the obvious, should not be reduced to such games of chance.
In essence, the Quinn Bill appears to be a petty and vengeful piece of legislation, one that was widely expected to fail once it was exposed to select committee scrutiny. Instead a centre right majority of National Party and Act MPs – including the now-disgraced David Garrett, and National’s Melissa Lee – has recommended that it be passed, yet wjthout these advocates bothering to include in the majority verdict any rationale for doing so.
Hidden in the majority verdict though, is this gem of illogic : “The Electoral Enrolment Centre has proposed working with the Department of Corrections to develop a national procedure to encourage prisoners to re-enrol upon release from prison.” Got that? The centre-right faction on the select committee wants officialdom to devise a new bureaucratic programme to re-register prisoners all over again, once they’re out of jail. First, they want to treat prisoners as non-persons and deny them the vote – and then want to set up a nationwide programme to re-ignite the same motivation that they’ve just gratuitously chosen to dampen. If there was a prize for political stupidity and bureaucratic proliferation in the first term of the current government, this Bill would have to be a prime contender. Prime Minister John Key clearly needs to take heed of the verdict of his Attorney – General, and advise the National caucus to vote against this measure.
As Sauve says, most prisoners do not weigh and balance the likely rights that they may lose when they commit a crime – and not even the thought of losing their right of liberty and freedom of movement usually comes into play. So, just as deterrence can only go so far to prevent crime, punishment also faces limits on what it can achieve before it reaches the point where it becomes self – defeating. Given the financial costs of prolonged imprisonment and the related costs of failed rehabilitation, society needs to strike the right balance. Separating due punishment from petty forms of societal revenge can help prisoners to recognise and accept their own responsibility for their condition, and can also assist in rehabilitation – a process in which society has an obvious and vital self-interest.
It is not an easy road. The relationship between society and those it imprisons is one full of mutual mistrust – especially given that many prisoners, even when going in, already see themselves as outlaws and social rejects. As Sauve concludes, it is important to tell prisoners the truth : ‘What most prisoners hear is somebody goes out and screws up and comes back in. They hear all the negative stuff. They don’t hear – well, the guy screwed up, but it was his issues, it wasn’t that society was rejecting him. They don’t hear that you can make it back into society, that you can turn your life around and you can have a good life. You may be on parole for life, but if you don’t violate the conditions and don’t break the law, then you are going to stay in the community.”
In sum, if we want to motivate prisoners to go down that road and accept responsibility for their crimes, society may have to forego some of its own petty impulses for revenge. In New Zealand, those petty impulses are epitomized in black and white right now, within Paul Quinn’s private member’s Bill.
ENDS
Why the current plan to take the right to vote away from prisoners is a terrible idea
by Gordon Campbell
Rick Sauve was a high school dropout. Back in the day, one of his teachers told him he was stupid, that he’d never finish high school and might as well quit – so he took the comments to heart, and left. Eventually, he became a young prospect for the Satan’s Choice biker gang in Port Hope, Ontario. One night in 1978 a drunk and threatening armed member of a rival bike gang got shot in a local bar – and Sauve and five other members of Satan’s Choice in the bar at the time got convicted of murder in a still-controversial trial, and were sent to prison for life.
That’s not what Sauve is known for in Canada, though. In 2002, after 18 years of campaigning (much of it done from behind bars) Sauve won a landmark victory. It took him two separate trips to the Supreme Court to do it, but he and his lawyer Chip O’Connor won the right for prisoners in Canada to vote.
Now 58, Sauve works these days for Lifeline, an innovative programme launched by the Canadian corrections system that enables lifers on parole to go back into prison to offer counseling and parole assistance to prisoners and warders alike. More than anything, Lifeline provides a personal and positive example to inmates currently serving life sentences, that there is hope for a life beyond prison.
Why did winning the right to vote matter so much to him? “Well,” he begins, “when I was sent to prison I was a father, still. I had a daughter. I was married. I had a family. I had always exercised my right to vote. So, even though I was sent to prison it didn’t stop me from having an interest in my community, and in the fact that I had a family in the community. I had a sister who was in the Air Force, so I cared about how our foreign policy affected her. My brothers and sisters with their kids – and with my own daughter going to school – meant that the education system still applied. So, even though I was in prison, it didn’t mean that I wasn’t still a part of my community. “
Obviously though, most bikers who get sent to prison for life on a murder count don’t end up bringing about constitutional change in their country. One key factor that made it possible for him was the passing of the Canadian Charter of Rights in 1982. Unlike our own flimsy Bill of Rights, the Canadian document is embedded, constitutionally – it sets out what are virtually inalienable rights. “ So, when the Charter came in I saw in section three that every citizen had the right to vote. I was still a citizen of Canada, and it was something I’d always exercised in the past. Since I hadn’t been stripped of my citizenship, it was enshrined in the Constitution that it was a right. So that’s when I got a hold of Chip O’Connor, and said I’d like to challenge this.”
The ups and downs of Sauve’s legal battle are still highly relevant to the New Zealand situation. Since 1993, New Zealand has denied the vote to serious offenders serving sentences of three years or more. This year, an idiotic and spiteful private members Bill sponsored by National MP Paul Quinn plans to extend that ban, and to deny the right to vote to every prisoner in a New Zealand jail. (More on that later.)
Initially, Sauve (pictured left) had lost in the lower court and won on appeal in the Supreme Court. At which point, he says, the Canadian government accepted that it couldn’t deny the vote to all prisoners, so it tried to set an arbitrary moral yardstick akin to New Zealand’s current position – and proposed that serious offenders serving sentences of five years or more would be barred, which would have knocked Sauve out of contention. Sauve went back to court, and won his case. By a narrow majority, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled in effect, that the right to vote is a virtually absolute right that is basic to being a citizen of the country.Since then, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg – in a case brought by the British prisoner John Hirst in 2005 – has reached the same conclusion.
Article 25 of the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights – an international agreement that New Zealand formally recognises – also acknowledges that citizens have the right to vote, without unreasonable restrictions. In Britain, denying prisoners the vote is a relic of the Victorian era, a consequence of the Forfeiture Act passed in 1870. In similar fashion, our current three- year sentence ban is already out of step with the trend of enlightened international opinion and practice, while the Paul Quinn private member’s Bill sits beyond that again – as a gratuitous pandering to the redneck fringe.
On this score at least, Canada has risen above its punitive worst impulses. By the time he was paroled in 1995, Sauve was the first Canadian prisoner to earn a university degree while serving a life sentence. He now holds three such degrees in total : a degree in psychology, an honours BA in criminology and a master’s degree in criminology from Ottawa University. As he says, those academic credentials have meant that he had something else to offer when he was released – and something more to talk about with employers than if he’d walked out of the prison gates after 16 years with only a few bucks in his back pocket. For most ex-cons, that’s not a platform for any kind of success.
“The best thing I got from education was the ability to learn,” he says.” and to think outside the box. And if I could do education while I was in prison, that allowed me to be a student, rather than a prisoner. So, with that kind of philosophy when I come back into the community I wasn’t coming back as a paroled prisoner. I was coming back as someone who thought that he not only had some formal education but also some skills, through which I thought I could make it.” That route was not easy at the time, and isn’t getting any easier, he explains, : most courses require an access to a computer that prisoners don’t have, so the whole thing has to be done by correspondence.
That drive to rebuild confidence and motivation remains a major element in his Lifeline work today, he explains. As he describes it, the work entails giving to others – people facing constant messages that they’re failures and rejects, and who doubt they will ever find a place within the community again– some degree of hope that instead, it is possible to come back, and to have a life.
The main argument against prisoners being allowed to vote is that their crime has cancelled out their right to be considered part of society. That argument, Sauve points out, lacks any value as a deterrent. “When people are committing a crime, most people are not thinking about the rights that they’re going to lose. They’re thinking about how they can avoid getting caught. If people already feel they don’t fit into society and that they’re rebelling against society – well, the better way of trying to encourage them to take part in society again is to encourage them actively, to vote – and to have a say within society.’‘ The one thing I noticed after we got the right to vote was when every election came about, guys in the dining hall or the ranges were actually talking about politics. And not necessarily talking about the beefs they were in, or stuff like that.” Not everyone in prison does exercise their vote, he adds, just as not everyone does in the community at large – but in his experience, prisoners do talk about the elections.
Even so, getting sent to prison means that people lose their right to a whole range of rights and freedoms. Why should the right to vote be held up as something sacrosanct? “You go to prison for a punishment,” Sauve replies. “ That is your punishment : the loss of freedom of movement. It really is severe. When you’re locked in your cell at night and you are all alone, that’s when you realize you’re really doing time. That’s also when you think about how you want to fit back into the community. I wanted to be able to fit back in. I wanted to show that I could make it, that I could be something other than my crime…”
By contrast, the removal of the right to vote is – he agrees – a way of saying to the prisoner that he or she is literally, a non-person. Given that most prisoners will one day be returning to society, how could it possibly be in society’s self interest to promote such an attitude? “I don’t think it is,” Sauve replies. “ I know that a lot of people want revenge. They don’t necessarily want justice. ‘
‘I think that many people don’t seem to realize though, that prisons are a community. It is a small community but it is one, all the same. A lot of people do charity work while they are in prison. Does it mean that people in prison shouldn’t be allowed to help other people? That they shouldn’t be entitled to healthcare? Or that someone in prison shouldn’t be allowed to have contact with their family, who are out in the community? No, we don’t isolate people like that. Not any more. What we hope for as a society is that people – when they are inside prison – are going to start to embrace the norms of the free world. But if instead, you continuously tell people : we don’t want you ; you’re not one of us ; you shouldn’t have this, you shouldn’t have that…. Well, people constantly hearing that message are likely to act out. They really are.“
Paul Quinn (left) could be expected to know better. Before becoming a National list MP, he did an economics degree at Lincoln University, worked as an analyst at the Reserve Bank, represented Ngati Awa in its Treaty claim and helped to manage their Treaty settlement, and is a former director of the New Zealand Rugby Union.Not that you’d suspect any of this from his private member’s Bill, which has been roundly criticized by everyone from the Law Society to the Human Rights Commission to his own caucus colleague, the Attorney– General, Chris Finlayson. In his report on the Bill’s (in)consistency with the Bill of Rights Act (aka BORA). Finlayson indicated that a blanket ban on prisoner voting would be inconsistent with section 12 of our Bill of Rights legislation. This section says that every citizen over the age of 18 has the right to vote and to stand for parliamentary office – apart from a fairly set reasons set out in section 5 of the same Act, which the Quinn Bill failed to meet, according to Finlayson. In fact, he argued, the supposed objective of the Bill – to deter serious offending – was ‘not rationally linked’ to the Bill’s own provisions to impose a blanket ban on prisoner voting. Reason being, serious offenders are already banned from voting by the existing law. As for everyone else : “ It is questionable that every person sentenced to any period of punishment is a serious offender. People who are not serious offenders will be disenfranchised…” The blanket ban, Finlayson concluded, cannot be justified.
Having pointed out the irrationality of the Quinn Bill, Finlayson then went further, to show how unjust it would play out in practice. The avowed purpose of the Bill is to deter serious offending. Yet under its provisions someone sentenced to home detention would still be able to vote, but someone sentenced to jail for the very same offence would be disenfranchised. Moreover, a serious violent offender sentenced to two and half years in jail would not lose their right to vote if their sentence fell – purely by chance – into the period between elections. Yet by the same token, someone sentenced to a week in jail for not paying their parking fines would lose their right to vote, if they were unlucky enough to be sentenced at the wrong point in the electoral cycle. Justice, to state the obvious, should not be reduced to such games of chance.In essence, the Quinn Bill appears to be a petty and vengeful piece of legislation, one that was widely expected to fail once it was exposed to select committee scrutiny. Instead a centre right majority of National Party and Act MPs – including the now-disgraced David Garrett, and National’s Melissa Lee – has recommended that it be passed, yet wjthout these advocates bothering to include in the majority verdict any rationale for doing so.
Hidden in the majority verdict though, is this gem of illogic : “The Electoral Enrolment Centre has proposed working with the Department of Corrections to develop a national procedure to encourage prisoners to re-enrol upon release from prison.” Got that? The centre-right faction on the select committee wants officialdom to devise a new bureaucratic programme to re-register prisoners all over again, once they’re out of jail. First, they want to treat prisoners as non-persons and deny them the vote – and then want to set up a nationwide programme to re-ignite the same motivation that they’ve just gratuitously chosen to dampen. If there was a prize for political stupidity and bureaucratic proliferation in the first term of the current government, this Bill would have to be a prime contender. Prime Minister John Key clearly needs to take heed of the verdict of his Attorney – General, and advise the National caucus to vote against this measure.
As Sauve says, most prisoners do not weigh and balance the likely rights that they may lose when they commit a crime – and not even the thought of losing their right of liberty and freedom of movement usually comes into play. So, just as deterrence can only go so far to prevent crime, punishment also faces limits on what it can achieve before it reaches the point where it becomes self – defeating. Given the financial costs of prolonged imprisonment and the related costs of failed rehabilitation, society needs to strike the right balance. Separating due punishment from petty forms of societal revenge can help prisoners to recognise and accept their own responsibility for their condition, and can also assist in rehabilitation – a process in which society has an obvious and vital self-interest.It is not an easy road. The relationship between society and those it imprisons is one full of mutual mistrust – especially given that many prisoners, even when going in, already see themselves as outlaws and social rejects. As Sauve concludes, it is important to tell prisoners the truth : ‘What most prisoners hear is somebody goes out and screws up and comes back in. They hear all the negative stuff. They don’t hear – well, the guy screwed up, but it was his issues, it wasn’t that society was rejecting him. They don’t hear that you can make it back into society, that you can turn your life around and you can have a good life. You may be on parole for life, but if you don’t violate the conditions and don’t break the law, then you are going to stay in the community.”
In sum, if we want to motivate prisoners to go down that road and accept responsibility for their crimes, society may have to forego some of its own petty impulses for revenge. In New Zealand, those petty impulses are epitomized in black and white right now, within Paul Quinn’s private member’s Bill.
ENDS
Monday, September 27, 2010
Families Fighting for Justice: Just a bunch of pathetic losers?
Families Fighting for Justice: Just a bunch of pathetic losers?
It's amusing that a pressure group called Families Fighting for Justice is making a little bit of a noise in calling for something they have already had, namely justice! When an offender is prosecuted and faces the court, not only is justice being done but it is also being manifestly seen to be done. So, the Families Fighting for Justice campaign is illogical. They can be dismissed as just a bunch of blood thirsty nutters.
Nobody likes to be a victim of crime. There is a danger of this leading to irrational thoughts, and what is really being sought is vengeance hiding behind the word justice. These people who only think about their own grief blind themselves to the other victims. The offender may be a victim, certainly the offenders family become victims.
At least Families Fighting for Justice has a voice, which is more than can be said for those poor souls serving life for murder or manslaughter. They don't have the vote, therefore they have no voice in Parliament. Along with the 75,000 other convicted prisoners they are victims because their human right to the vote is being denied by the government in defiance of a ECtHR ruling. In effect, these convicted prisoners are suffering the 'civil death' of not being recognised as human beings entitled to even basic human rights. They are also suffering in silence. Perhaps, this is what Families Fighting for Justice should do?
It's amusing that a pressure group called Families Fighting for Justice is making a little bit of a noise in calling for something they have already had, namely justice! When an offender is prosecuted and faces the court, not only is justice being done but it is also being manifestly seen to be done. So, the Families Fighting for Justice campaign is illogical. They can be dismissed as just a bunch of blood thirsty nutters.
Nobody likes to be a victim of crime. There is a danger of this leading to irrational thoughts, and what is really being sought is vengeance hiding behind the word justice. These people who only think about their own grief blind themselves to the other victims. The offender may be a victim, certainly the offenders family become victims.
At least Families Fighting for Justice has a voice, which is more than can be said for those poor souls serving life for murder or manslaughter. They don't have the vote, therefore they have no voice in Parliament. Along with the 75,000 other convicted prisoners they are victims because their human right to the vote is being denied by the government in defiance of a ECtHR ruling. In effect, these convicted prisoners are suffering the 'civil death' of not being recognised as human beings entitled to even basic human rights. They are also suffering in silence. Perhaps, this is what Families Fighting for Justice should do?
Government policy on torture could break law
Government policy on torture could break law
Equality and Human Rights Commission writes to Cameron expressing concerns about newly published guidance
The UK's official human rights watchdog has warned the government that its newly published guidance on torture may be unlawful and open to challenge in the courts.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has written to prime minister David Cameron and to the heads of MI5 and MI6 expressing "serious concerns" about the guidance, and explaining how it believes it could be altered to comply with UK and international law.
The EHRC made clear that the correspondence is a formal letter before action, putting the government on notice that it may turn to the courts to seek a judicial review of the guidance if it is not amended.
It is the second time the policy has been challenged since it was published less than three months ago as part of an attempt by the coalition government to signal a clear break with the counter-terrorism practices of the Labour administration, amid mounting evidence that those practices resulted in human rights abuses.
Comment: What value can one put on an assurance from a state which routinely tortures victims that it will not torture in specific cases, just because the UK wants to reduce the amount of immigration and asylum cases? Then there is the UK giving assurances to the Council of Europe to abide by the Convention and ECtHR decisions and breaking these assurances in the Prisoners Votes Case.
Equality and Human Rights Commission writes to Cameron expressing concerns about newly published guidance
The UK's official human rights watchdog has warned the government that its newly published guidance on torture may be unlawful and open to challenge in the courts.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has written to prime minister David Cameron and to the heads of MI5 and MI6 expressing "serious concerns" about the guidance, and explaining how it believes it could be altered to comply with UK and international law.
The EHRC made clear that the correspondence is a formal letter before action, putting the government on notice that it may turn to the courts to seek a judicial review of the guidance if it is not amended.
It is the second time the policy has been challenged since it was published less than three months ago as part of an attempt by the coalition government to signal a clear break with the counter-terrorism practices of the Labour administration, amid mounting evidence that those practices resulted in human rights abuses.
Comment: What value can one put on an assurance from a state which routinely tortures victims that it will not torture in specific cases, just because the UK wants to reduce the amount of immigration and asylum cases? Then there is the UK giving assurances to the Council of Europe to abide by the Convention and ECtHR decisions and breaking these assurances in the Prisoners Votes Case.
Temple Grandin: My autism made me a cowgirl superstar
Temple Grandin: My autism made me a cowgirl superstar
Temple Grandin had such severe autism that even her own father wanted her put in an institution. Now she’s the toast of Hollywood. Tom Leonard reports.
The red carpet commentators on frock-watch at the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles had a treat in store for them this year. Clad in black and red cowgirl gear, Temple Grandin – bestselling author, groundbreaking animal behaviour expert and arguably the world’s most successful autistic person – gave the US television industry’s annual hoedown a real taste of the Wild West.
At one point, she jumped up and swung her arm lasso-style at the stage. The woman who took on the macho world of ranching over its treatment of cattle and who was named by Time magazine as one of 2010’s 100 most influential people wasn’t going to be cowed by Hollywood. Two days later, back at her day job lecturing in livestock handling and behaviour at Colorado State University, she reassured her students that the Emmy party had been “just like a US meat industry convention, only with rather less drinking”.
Temple Grandin had such severe autism that even her own father wanted her put in an institution. Now she’s the toast of Hollywood. Tom Leonard reports.
The red carpet commentators on frock-watch at the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles had a treat in store for them this year. Clad in black and red cowgirl gear, Temple Grandin – bestselling author, groundbreaking animal behaviour expert and arguably the world’s most successful autistic person – gave the US television industry’s annual hoedown a real taste of the Wild West.
At one point, she jumped up and swung her arm lasso-style at the stage. The woman who took on the macho world of ranching over its treatment of cattle and who was named by Time magazine as one of 2010’s 100 most influential people wasn’t going to be cowed by Hollywood. Two days later, back at her day job lecturing in livestock handling and behaviour at Colorado State University, she reassured her students that the Emmy party had been “just like a US meat industry convention, only with rather less drinking”.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Ed Miliband wins Labour leadership race
Ed Miliband wins Labour leadership race
Ed Miliband has been elected as the new leader of the Labour Party in a narrow victory over his brother David.
At least Labour did not allow the torture supporting David Miliband to become leader of the party. However, given that it was a close run thing I doubt that this issue was a deciding factor.
Ed Miliband has been elected as the new leader of the Labour Party in a narrow victory over his brother David.
At least Labour did not allow the torture supporting David Miliband to become leader of the party. However, given that it was a close run thing I doubt that this issue was a deciding factor.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Up the skirt shot from a midget's point of view
Up the skirt shot from a midget's point of view
Khagendra Thapa, who is expected to be the world's shortest man next month when he turns 18, stands with Miss Nepal beauty pageant winners during a news conference in Kathmandu. The Nepal Tourism Board has nominated Thapa and Miss Nepal beauty pageant winners as goodwill ambassadors to promote tourism in Nepal. Thapa will carry the message: "Shortest man in the world from the highest mountain in the world invites you to visit Nepal"
Picture: REUTERS
Khagendra Thapa, who is expected to be the world's shortest man next month when he turns 18, stands with Miss Nepal beauty pageant winners during a news conference in Kathmandu. The Nepal Tourism Board has nominated Thapa and Miss Nepal beauty pageant winners as goodwill ambassadors to promote tourism in Nepal. Thapa will carry the message: "Shortest man in the world from the highest mountain in the world invites you to visit Nepal"Picture: REUTERS
The week in pictures: 24 September 2010
The week in pictures: 24 September 2010
Looking like a massive firework display, this spectacular northern lights photo shows green and purple colours rippling across the Arctic sky. The picture was taken on September 16 2010, near Skittenelv in the Tromsø area, in northern Norway, by photographer Ole Christian Salomonsen. The aurora borealis is a reflection of recent solar activity which has caused some amazing light shows. The light is caused by explosions on the surface of the sun which throw out electrically charged particles towards the earth. When the solar wind carrying the particles hits our atmosphere it is swept towards the poles by our magnetic field where the particles react with ions in the atmosphere, causing nature's greatest light show. See the next photo for another amazing display...
Picture: Ole Christian Salomonsen / National News & Pictures
...This picture of the northern lights - taken by Thilo Bubek - was also shot near Tromso in northern Norway earlier this month. Picture: Thilo Bubek / NAtional News & Pictures
A statue of Ceres, Roman goddess of agriculture, is silhouetted against the rising super harvest moon as it stands on top of the Missouri State Capitol building in Jefferson City. The rare occurrence of the Super Harvest Moon occurs when the autumnal equinox coincides with the full moon and what NASA calls a '360-degree, summer-autumn twilight glow that is only seen on rare occasions'. The last time such a Super Harvest Moon happened in 1991
Picture: AP
The moon rises behind Coit Tower in San Francisco, California - the first time in two decades that the Sun has sunk as a full Moon has risen exactly opposite to it on the autumnal equinox, or the beginning of autumn. Picture: GETTY
The heart of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) is pictured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. Seen as a massive cloud of glowing dust and gas, bombarded by the energetic radiation of new stars, this placid name hides a dramatic reality. Located 4,000 to 5,000 light-years away, in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), Messier 8 is a huge region of star birth that stretches across 100 light-years. Clouds of hydrogen gas are slowly collapsing to form new stars, whose bright ultraviolet rays then light up the surrounding gas in a distinctive shade of red
Picture: NASA / ESA / AFP
Looking like a massive firework display, this spectacular northern lights photo shows green and purple colours rippling across the Arctic sky. The picture was taken on September 16 2010, near Skittenelv in the Tromsø area, in northern Norway, by photographer Ole Christian Salomonsen. The aurora borealis is a reflection of recent solar activity which has caused some amazing light shows. The light is caused by explosions on the surface of the sun which throw out electrically charged particles towards the earth. When the solar wind carrying the particles hits our atmosphere it is swept towards the poles by our magnetic field where the particles react with ions in the atmosphere, causing nature's greatest light show. See the next photo for another amazing display...Picture: Ole Christian Salomonsen / National News & Pictures
...This picture of the northern lights - taken by Thilo Bubek - was also shot near Tromso in northern Norway earlier this month. Picture: Thilo Bubek / NAtional News & PicturesA statue of Ceres, Roman goddess of agriculture, is silhouetted against the rising super harvest moon as it stands on top of the Missouri State Capitol building in Jefferson City. The rare occurrence of the Super Harvest Moon occurs when the autumnal equinox coincides with the full moon and what NASA calls a '360-degree, summer-autumn twilight glow that is only seen on rare occasions'. The last time such a Super Harvest Moon happened in 1991Picture: AP
The moon rises behind Coit Tower in San Francisco, California - the first time in two decades that the Sun has sunk as a full Moon has risen exactly opposite to it on the autumnal equinox, or the beginning of autumn. Picture: GETTYThe heart of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) is pictured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. Seen as a massive cloud of glowing dust and gas, bombarded by the energetic radiation of new stars, this placid name hides a dramatic reality. Located 4,000 to 5,000 light-years away, in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), Messier 8 is a huge region of star birth that stretches across 100 light-years. Clouds of hydrogen gas are slowly collapsing to form new stars, whose bright ultraviolet rays then light up the surrounding gas in a distinctive shade of redPicture: NASA / ESA / AFP
Owl at the flower shop on Newland Avenue
Owl at the flower shop on Newland Avenue
The last thing I thought I would think about when I went shopping for my breakfast this morning was Cherrypie...
The last thing I thought I would think about when I went shopping for my breakfast this morning was Cherrypie...
Control orders are dehumanising, abusive and should be scrapped
Control orders are dehumanising, abusive and should be scrapped
If a person is suspected of terrorism, then they should be tried in court. To be judged without trial is an abuse of human rights
Robin Simcox's liberty central article argues that the control order scheme should not be abandoned because it offers the best policy the UK has in challenging terrorists who cannot be tried in a court of law because the evidence against them has to be kept secret. However, it is commonplace for those on the right to argue in favour of waiving away the rights of a minority in order, they allege, to protect the majority.
If a person is suspected of terrorism, then they should be tried in court. To be judged without trial is an abuse of human rights
Robin Simcox's liberty central article argues that the control order scheme should not be abandoned because it offers the best policy the UK has in challenging terrorists who cannot be tried in a court of law because the evidence against them has to be kept secret. However, it is commonplace for those on the right to argue in favour of waiving away the rights of a minority in order, they allege, to protect the majority.
Is there a cure for Britain's most dangerous criminals?
Is there a cure for Britain's most dangerous criminals?
Jeremy Laurance meets Dr Gwen Adshead, forensic psychotherapist at Broadmoor Hospital
Derek and Jean Robinson were a kindly couple who lived in a neat house in Heslington, York. He was a doctor and she worked for Christian Aid. It was the early 1970s; I was a student at the university, and my father, who knew them, had urged me to make contact. I spent a pleasant hour in their kitchen, chatting over coffee, and then took my leave, promising, as one does, to see them again soon. I never did. The next I heard, more than 30 years later, was that they had been murdered by a man with a psychopathic personality disorder who told police he wanted to become Britain's most prolific serial killer.
Jeremy Laurance meets Dr Gwen Adshead, forensic psychotherapist at Broadmoor Hospital
Derek and Jean Robinson were a kindly couple who lived in a neat house in Heslington, York. He was a doctor and she worked for Christian Aid. It was the early 1970s; I was a student at the university, and my father, who knew them, had urged me to make contact. I spent a pleasant hour in their kitchen, chatting over coffee, and then took my leave, promising, as one does, to see them again soon. I never did. The next I heard, more than 30 years later, was that they had been murdered by a man with a psychopathic personality disorder who told police he wanted to become Britain's most prolific serial killer.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Teresa Lewis given lethal injection despite protests over low IQ
Teresa Lewis given lethal injection despite protests over low IQ
Teresa Lewis, convicted of plotting to kill her husband and stepson, dies at Greensville Correctional Centre in Virginia
Teresa Lewis, a 41-year-old who was judged to have an IQ of 72, was the first woman to be executed in Virginia since 1912. Photograph: Ho/AFP/Getty Images
Teresa Lewis died early today after being given a lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Centre, the first woman to be executed in Virginia in almost a century.
The execution went ahead in spite of protests from lawyers, celebrities and others who argued that she should have been given clemency because of her low IQ. Under US law, anyone with an IQ of 70 avoids the death penalty. Lewis was judged to have an IQ of 72.
The 41-year-old was convicted of plotting to kill her husband, Julian Lewis, and her stepson, Charles Lewis. She persuaded two men to carry out the murders in return for sex and money. The two men received life sentences.
She spent her final day with her family. Virigina correctional services said she had asked for her last meal to consist of fried chicken breasts, a dessert and a Dr Pepper.
During her last few minutes she prayed and held hands with her chaplain and with her lawyer, Jim Rocap.
She walked the ten steps from her cell to the execution chamber where she was strapped down. Witnesses said she looked terrified.
Kathy Clifton, Lewis's stepdaughter, was in an adjoining witness room blocked from view by a two-way mirror.
A curtain closed while tubes were attached and then briefly reopened. She
said: "I want Kathy to know I love you and I am very sorry."
Pleas for clemency were rejected by the governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, who said there was no "compelling reason". An appeal to the US Supreme Court was also turned down.
The last execution of a woman in the US was in 2005 when Frances Newton was injected in Texas. The last woman to be executed in Virginia was Virginia Christian in 1912, for suffocating her employer.
Lewis's motive was primarily money. She intended to pick up $250,000 (£160,000) in insurance from a policy Charles Lewis had taken out and which passed to his father on his death.
She recruited Matthew Shallenberger, with whom she had an affair, and Rodney Fuller, to carry out the murder. In 2002, she went to bed with her husband but got up to unlock the door and lock their pit bull terrier in another room. Shallenberger and Fuller then shot her husband and stepson.
Lewis waited 45 minutes before calling the police, but her husband was still alive and told the police she knew those responsible. She confessed a few days later.
About 6,000 people signed a petition calling for clemency, in part because of her claim to have found God and in part because of the apparent injustice of her receiving the death penalty while the two men received life.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, referred to the case earlier this week on a visit to New York, saying the west had double standards – criticising Iran for sentencing a woman to be stoned but failing to show the same outrage in the Lewis case.
Related content...
Teresa Lewis: victim of vengeance
I've reported many executions – but the more I see, the less it makes sense. Now this unreason has claimed number 1,227
Teresa Lewis, convicted of plotting to kill her husband and stepson, dies at Greensville Correctional Centre in Virginia
Teresa Lewis, a 41-year-old who was judged to have an IQ of 72, was the first woman to be executed in Virginia since 1912. Photograph: Ho/AFP/Getty ImagesTeresa Lewis died early today after being given a lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Centre, the first woman to be executed in Virginia in almost a century.
The execution went ahead in spite of protests from lawyers, celebrities and others who argued that she should have been given clemency because of her low IQ. Under US law, anyone with an IQ of 70 avoids the death penalty. Lewis was judged to have an IQ of 72.
The 41-year-old was convicted of plotting to kill her husband, Julian Lewis, and her stepson, Charles Lewis. She persuaded two men to carry out the murders in return for sex and money. The two men received life sentences.
She spent her final day with her family. Virigina correctional services said she had asked for her last meal to consist of fried chicken breasts, a dessert and a Dr Pepper.
During her last few minutes she prayed and held hands with her chaplain and with her lawyer, Jim Rocap.
She walked the ten steps from her cell to the execution chamber where she was strapped down. Witnesses said she looked terrified.
Kathy Clifton, Lewis's stepdaughter, was in an adjoining witness room blocked from view by a two-way mirror.
A curtain closed while tubes were attached and then briefly reopened. She
said: "I want Kathy to know I love you and I am very sorry."
Pleas for clemency were rejected by the governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, who said there was no "compelling reason". An appeal to the US Supreme Court was also turned down.
The last execution of a woman in the US was in 2005 when Frances Newton was injected in Texas. The last woman to be executed in Virginia was Virginia Christian in 1912, for suffocating her employer.
Lewis's motive was primarily money. She intended to pick up $250,000 (£160,000) in insurance from a policy Charles Lewis had taken out and which passed to his father on his death.
She recruited Matthew Shallenberger, with whom she had an affair, and Rodney Fuller, to carry out the murder. In 2002, she went to bed with her husband but got up to unlock the door and lock their pit bull terrier in another room. Shallenberger and Fuller then shot her husband and stepson.
Lewis waited 45 minutes before calling the police, but her husband was still alive and told the police she knew those responsible. She confessed a few days later.
About 6,000 people signed a petition calling for clemency, in part because of her claim to have found God and in part because of the apparent injustice of her receiving the death penalty while the two men received life.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, referred to the case earlier this week on a visit to New York, saying the west had double standards – criticising Iran for sentencing a woman to be stoned but failing to show the same outrage in the Lewis case.
Related content...
Teresa Lewis: victim of vengeance
I've reported many executions – but the more I see, the less it makes sense. Now this unreason has claimed number 1,227
Judges must pay for wrongs at trial
Judges must pay for wrongs at trial
Blair...broke statutory laws as well as rules of ethics and evidence.
Blair...broke statutory laws as well as rules of ethics and evidence.
Prisoner Suu Kyi allowed vote in Burma poll
Prisoner Suu Kyi allowed vote in Burma poll
Detained Burma pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will be allowed vote in November's election, an election commission source said today, despite prisoners being barred from casting ballots.
Ms Suu Kyi last month advised members of her now-defunct National League for Democracy (NLD) party not to vote in the election, the first since the 1990 polls the NLD won in a landslide, a result the junta refused to recognise.
Rights groups have derided the elections as a sham designed to entrench military power in the isolated Southeast Asian state.
The NLD was effectively dissolved on September 14th after failing to register for the polls because of "unjust and unfair" laws and the regime's refusal to release political detainees.
A staff member at the election commission office in Ms Suu Kyi's Bahan Township ward, who requested anonymity, confirmed the Nobel laureate's name was on the electoral role for the November 7th polls, which her political party is boycotting.
It has long been assumed Ms Suu Kyi would be barred from taking part in any capacity since Burma's 2008 constitution states "persons serving prison terms" are prevented from voting or running as candidates.
She was found guilty last August of breaking an internal security law by allowing an American intruder to stay at her Rangoon lakeside home.
She is now serving a sentence of 18 months under house arrest and is due for release one week after the election.
Nyan Win, Ms Suu Kyi's lawyer and spokesman for the NLD, said he was baffled by her inclusion. "It's tantamount to saying that she is not a prisoner," he added.
The international community has made repeated calls for free, fair and inclusive polls and the release of Suu Kyi and an estimated 2,200 other political prisoners.
The United States last year said the polls will not be credible if Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the last 21 years in some form of detention, was not allowed to take part.
London-based rights group Amnesty International yesterday appealed to the government to release activists jailed for exercising their right of free speech, assembly and association.
"It beggars belief that the government can attempt to burnish its democratic credentials by holding elections, while it also holds more than 2,200 political prisoners behind bars and out of sight of the campaigns and polls", Amnesty said.
Reuters
Detained Burma pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will be allowed vote in November's election, an election commission source said today, despite prisoners being barred from casting ballots.
Ms Suu Kyi last month advised members of her now-defunct National League for Democracy (NLD) party not to vote in the election, the first since the 1990 polls the NLD won in a landslide, a result the junta refused to recognise.
Rights groups have derided the elections as a sham designed to entrench military power in the isolated Southeast Asian state.
The NLD was effectively dissolved on September 14th after failing to register for the polls because of "unjust and unfair" laws and the regime's refusal to release political detainees.
A staff member at the election commission office in Ms Suu Kyi's Bahan Township ward, who requested anonymity, confirmed the Nobel laureate's name was on the electoral role for the November 7th polls, which her political party is boycotting.
It has long been assumed Ms Suu Kyi would be barred from taking part in any capacity since Burma's 2008 constitution states "persons serving prison terms" are prevented from voting or running as candidates.
She was found guilty last August of breaking an internal security law by allowing an American intruder to stay at her Rangoon lakeside home.
She is now serving a sentence of 18 months under house arrest and is due for release one week after the election.
Nyan Win, Ms Suu Kyi's lawyer and spokesman for the NLD, said he was baffled by her inclusion. "It's tantamount to saying that she is not a prisoner," he added.
The international community has made repeated calls for free, fair and inclusive polls and the release of Suu Kyi and an estimated 2,200 other political prisoners.
The United States last year said the polls will not be credible if Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the last 21 years in some form of detention, was not allowed to take part.
London-based rights group Amnesty International yesterday appealed to the government to release activists jailed for exercising their right of free speech, assembly and association.
"It beggars belief that the government can attempt to burnish its democratic credentials by holding elections, while it also holds more than 2,200 political prisoners behind bars and out of sight of the campaigns and polls", Amnesty said.
Reuters
Grieving Merseyside families to march on Downing Street
Grieving Merseyside families to march on Downing Street
Sep 24 2010 by Jamie Bowman, Liverpool Echo
HUNDREDS of people whose family members were violently killed will march through London this weekend calling for tougher sentences for murder and manslaughter.
The protest will be led by Families Fighting For Justice, a group founded by Jean Taylor of Greasby, in Wirral, whose daughter Chantel was murdered in 2004.
She said: “We believe that life should mean life for first degree murder and that there should also be tougher sentences for manslaughter.
“At the moment someone charged with manslaughter can end up serving as little as a year which is an insult to the families involved.”
The campaigners will travel down to London, meeting up at the Victoria Embankment entrance of Temple tube station at 1pm from where they intend to march past the Houses of Parliament.
Mrs Taylor, who also lost her son and sister to violent crime, said: “I will walk up to 10 Downing Street where I will hand in a letter from Families Fighting For Justice telling David Cameron that we will march on London every six months unless they bring in tougher sentences for murder and manslaughter.
“Successive governments have whittled down sentences for these crimes and they should hang their heads in shame.”
The group are also concerned about calls from the European Human Rights Court to give prisoners in the UK the right to vote, a freedom which has been denied since 1870.
Mrs Taylor said: “My son and daughter can never vote now so what gives murderers that right?
“It is yet another case of people being on the side of the criminals rather than the victims.”
Speakers at the rally will include MPs Mark Jones and Stephen Lloyd.
Sep 24 2010 by Jamie Bowman, Liverpool Echo
HUNDREDS of people whose family members were violently killed will march through London this weekend calling for tougher sentences for murder and manslaughter.
The protest will be led by Families Fighting For Justice, a group founded by Jean Taylor of Greasby, in Wirral, whose daughter Chantel was murdered in 2004.
She said: “We believe that life should mean life for first degree murder and that there should also be tougher sentences for manslaughter.
“At the moment someone charged with manslaughter can end up serving as little as a year which is an insult to the families involved.”
The campaigners will travel down to London, meeting up at the Victoria Embankment entrance of Temple tube station at 1pm from where they intend to march past the Houses of Parliament.
Mrs Taylor, who also lost her son and sister to violent crime, said: “I will walk up to 10 Downing Street where I will hand in a letter from Families Fighting For Justice telling David Cameron that we will march on London every six months unless they bring in tougher sentences for murder and manslaughter.
“Successive governments have whittled down sentences for these crimes and they should hang their heads in shame.”
The group are also concerned about calls from the European Human Rights Court to give prisoners in the UK the right to vote, a freedom which has been denied since 1870.
Mrs Taylor said: “My son and daughter can never vote now so what gives murderers that right?
“It is yet another case of people being on the side of the criminals rather than the victims.”
Speakers at the rally will include MPs Mark Jones and Stephen Lloyd.
JAILBIRDS’ HUMAN RIGHTS CLAIMS COST US £300,000 A YEAR
JAILBIRDS’ HUMAN RIGHTS CLAIMS COST US £300,000 A YEAR
By Paul Gilbride, Scottish Political Reporter, Daily Express
PRISONERS who claim that their human rights were violated are costing Scottish taxpayers £300,000 a year.
Figures released yesterday show 190 inmates have shared in a windfall of £297,500 since the SNP came to power, mainly for slopping-out cases.
As well as the compensation cash, the hard-working public has also paid the criminals’ legal aid bill of £376,014.
Defending the legal challenges has also cost the public purse £249,600.
The figures are over and above the £11.2million taxpayers paid to inmates between 1999 and May 2007.
Most are from slopping-out claims by prisoners who use European human rights laws to argue they suffered degrading and inhumane punishment by being forced to use a bucket as a toilet at night while sharing cells.
A legal loophole was plugged last year to put a one-year time limit on new claims. Tens of thousands of pounds have also been paid out in compensation for personal injury or for unlawful detention.
There was anger last year when three criminals won a human rights case over segregation.
Murderers Andrew Somerville and Ricardo Blanco and robber Sammy Ralston received £2,100 each over claims prison guards hurt their feelings by locking them up alone.
The figures emerged from Scottish Government answers to written questions from Labour peer and MSP George Foulkes.
Scottish Prison Service chief executive John Ewing said more than 2,000 prisoners have raised proceedings in the Sheriff Court or Court of Session since May 2007. So far 190 have been settled.
Lothians MSP Lord Foulkes yesterday suggested that, even though it would be hard to accept, it would be cheaper not to fight the cases but settle instead.
He said: “People living in worse conditions than many prisoners will be outraged by these payouts. But, since we are signed up to the European Human Rights Act, it might be better for tax-payers if we just accept it.
“Compensation claims were cheaper than costs for legal aid.”
Scottish Tory justice spokesman John Lamont said: “The taxpayer is now being seen as a cash cow by some of the most undeserving people.”
At the weekend it emerged that UK ministers are considering granting prisoners the right to vote in time for next year’s Holyrood elections in order to comply with a European Court of Human Rights ruling.
By Paul Gilbride, Scottish Political Reporter, Daily Express
PRISONERS who claim that their human rights were violated are costing Scottish taxpayers £300,000 a year.
Figures released yesterday show 190 inmates have shared in a windfall of £297,500 since the SNP came to power, mainly for slopping-out cases.
As well as the compensation cash, the hard-working public has also paid the criminals’ legal aid bill of £376,014.
Defending the legal challenges has also cost the public purse £249,600.
The figures are over and above the £11.2million taxpayers paid to inmates between 1999 and May 2007.
Most are from slopping-out claims by prisoners who use European human rights laws to argue they suffered degrading and inhumane punishment by being forced to use a bucket as a toilet at night while sharing cells.
A legal loophole was plugged last year to put a one-year time limit on new claims. Tens of thousands of pounds have also been paid out in compensation for personal injury or for unlawful detention.
There was anger last year when three criminals won a human rights case over segregation.
Murderers Andrew Somerville and Ricardo Blanco and robber Sammy Ralston received £2,100 each over claims prison guards hurt their feelings by locking them up alone.
The figures emerged from Scottish Government answers to written questions from Labour peer and MSP George Foulkes.
Scottish Prison Service chief executive John Ewing said more than 2,000 prisoners have raised proceedings in the Sheriff Court or Court of Session since May 2007. So far 190 have been settled.
Lothians MSP Lord Foulkes yesterday suggested that, even though it would be hard to accept, it would be cheaper not to fight the cases but settle instead.
He said: “People living in worse conditions than many prisoners will be outraged by these payouts. But, since we are signed up to the European Human Rights Act, it might be better for tax-payers if we just accept it.
“Compensation claims were cheaper than costs for legal aid.”
Scottish Tory justice spokesman John Lamont said: “The taxpayer is now being seen as a cash cow by some of the most undeserving people.”
At the weekend it emerged that UK ministers are considering granting prisoners the right to vote in time for next year’s Holyrood elections in order to comply with a European Court of Human Rights ruling.
Wall around site of planned prison 'poor use of money '
Wall around site of planned prison 'poor use of money '
By CAROL COULTER
The Irish Times - Friday, September 24, 2010
BUILDING A wall around the site bought for a new prison at Thornton Hall is not a good use of public money, according to Green Senator Dan Boyle.
Mr Boyle told the Irish Penal Reform Trust conference, “Shifting Focus: From Criminal Justice to Social Justice”, it was clear that resources would not be available to build new prisons, and money should not be spent on “saving political pride” by building a wall around Thornton Hall to show there would be a prison there some time.
He was speaking during a panel discussion of Oireachtas members on how to bring about a change in emphasis in the justice system. The others panellists were Fianna Fáil TD Mary O’Rourke, Labour TD Pat Rabbitte and Sinn Fein TD Aongus Ó Snodaigh. Fine Gael was not represented.
Senator Boyle said the increase in prison numbers should not be seen as a badge of pride. Prison numbers should be reduced, and prison only used as a last resort. He criticised the “appalling double standards” whereby white collar crime goes largely unpunished.
Labour spokesman on justice Pat Rabbitte said he was open to the idea of the reallocation of some existing resources towards early intervention.
“There are no votes in penal reform,” he said. “We live in a society where crime sells newspapers, and where crime correspondents are transferred between papers like footballers, where criminals are meant to be locked up and out of sight and out of mind. God help the politician who does not agree.”
Some good things had happened, like the inter-agency co-operation in the Drug Task Forces, and this should be developed.
Mrs O’Rourke said education was the key, especially keeping young people in education until the end of the secondary cycle. While very good work had been done with home-school liaison officers at primary level, she said there needed to be close monitoring of young people at secondary level who might be in danger of offending.
“Should youth justice not be in Education?” she asked. Mr Ó Snodaigh said it was very important to progress the Bill dealing with spent convictions which is before the Dail, and which is linked to the need to integrate former prisoners into society through employment.
By CAROL COULTER
The Irish Times - Friday, September 24, 2010
BUILDING A wall around the site bought for a new prison at Thornton Hall is not a good use of public money, according to Green Senator Dan Boyle.
Mr Boyle told the Irish Penal Reform Trust conference, “Shifting Focus: From Criminal Justice to Social Justice”, it was clear that resources would not be available to build new prisons, and money should not be spent on “saving political pride” by building a wall around Thornton Hall to show there would be a prison there some time.
He was speaking during a panel discussion of Oireachtas members on how to bring about a change in emphasis in the justice system. The others panellists were Fianna Fáil TD Mary O’Rourke, Labour TD Pat Rabbitte and Sinn Fein TD Aongus Ó Snodaigh. Fine Gael was not represented.
Senator Boyle said the increase in prison numbers should not be seen as a badge of pride. Prison numbers should be reduced, and prison only used as a last resort. He criticised the “appalling double standards” whereby white collar crime goes largely unpunished.
Labour spokesman on justice Pat Rabbitte said he was open to the idea of the reallocation of some existing resources towards early intervention.
“There are no votes in penal reform,” he said. “We live in a society where crime sells newspapers, and where crime correspondents are transferred between papers like footballers, where criminals are meant to be locked up and out of sight and out of mind. God help the politician who does not agree.”
Some good things had happened, like the inter-agency co-operation in the Drug Task Forces, and this should be developed.
Mrs O’Rourke said education was the key, especially keeping young people in education until the end of the secondary cycle. While very good work had been done with home-school liaison officers at primary level, she said there needed to be close monitoring of young people at secondary level who might be in danger of offending.
“Should youth justice not be in Education?” she asked. Mr Ó Snodaigh said it was very important to progress the Bill dealing with spent convictions which is before the Dail, and which is linked to the need to integrate former prisoners into society through employment.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Grendon: a prison in danger
Grendon: a prison in danger
David Wilson urges that one incident must not be allowed to undermine Grendon prison’s radical methodology
by David Wilson
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
The murder of Robert Coello in August at HMP Grendon should not be allowed to undermine the incredible work done there since its foundation in 1960 – it is still the only prison in Europe to operate wholly as a therapeutic community – or prevent us from celebrating the 50th anniversary of this extraordinary institution.
Grendon has always had its detractors, and lately those who are less inclined to support a prison that works psycho-dynamically with serious and violent offenders have pointed to the costs involved. Grendon does cost approximately £48,000 per prisoner place per annum, which is roughly £10,000 more per annum more than other Category B prisons.
But is this a fair comparison? Given the type of prisoner that Grendon accepts – recently described as “damaged, dangerous and disturbed”, with elevated psychopathy scores, perhaps a fairer cost comparison would be with Rampton, Ashworth and Broadmoor, or with the dangerous and severe personality disorder units within the high security estate. Compared with these, Grendon’s costs are insignificant. A place at Rampton, for example, costs £250,000 a year. One in the DSPD unit at Whitemoor costs £200,000 a year.
But what should we make of the murder of Robert Coello? Perhaps the first thing to say is that violence within prisons is endemic. Only last month, the Howard League for Penal Reform published evidence that assaults in prison had increased by 61 per cent between 2000-2009 and that in 2009 there were 15,180 acts of violence – that’s about 40 per day. So, too, murder in prison is more common than the Ministry of Justice would care to admit. In 1999, for example, the murder rate in prison was six times higher than the murder rate in the community.
Historically, Grendon has had the lowest rate of violence within the entire penal system. It does not even have a segregation unit. Assaults on staff, on prisoners, rooftop demonstrations, riots, hostage taking incidents and escapes are so rare as to be virtually non-existent. All this makes the murder of Robert Coello all the more worrying. Perhaps, though, this has less to do with any underlying problem with the therapeutic regime at Grendon and rather more to do with the reality that the prison regime keeps being cut in order to save money. This process is only likely get worse, given the financial cuts being required at the Ministry of Justice. There is now no therapy at Grendon between Friday afternoons and Monday mornings and it is becoming rare for therapy groups to be facilitated by the same staff member. The small charity that supports the prison – the Friends of Grendon – is trying to raise £60,000 to restore therapy sessions to Friday afternoons.
What is worse is that all this should have been foreseen. It is not as if there haven’t been plenty of people warning the government that Grendon was in danger of suffering death by a thousand cuts. Anne Owers, the outgoing Chief Inspector of Prisons, said it was “of enormous concern that cumulative financial efficiencies had begun to erode Grendon’s capacity to deliver a therapeutic regime”. The prison’s independent monitoring board has been similarly worried and at pains to point out what financial cuts are doing to Grendon.
There is an old Chinese curse that damns you to “live in interesting times”. That is what is going to happen as far Grendon is concerned in the coming months. First, there will be the various investigations into the circumstances surrounding the murder of Robert Coello. Then we will have to see if the Ministry of Justice continues to support the specialist work of the prison. There are some signs that it might. Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt stated in July that he was “impressed” by the work of Grendon. He recognised that what happens there is “no soft option – it is hard work”. The minister even wanted to see how the therapeutic work of Grendon could be transferred into the rest of the prison estate. He now needs to make good on those words.
Having alluded to a Chinese curse, it can also be pointed out that the Chinese symbol for “crisis” is a mixture of two other symbols: danger and opportunity. The dangers for Grendon in this crisis are all too obvious, but there are also opportunities that could come out of tragedy. There is the opportunity above all for the Ministry of Justice to give the proper resources to Grendon to do the job it is meant to do, which it has been doing for the past 50 years with precious little support.
David Wilson is professor of criminology and criminal justice at Birmingham City University and chair of the Commission on English Prisons
David Wilson urges that one incident must not be allowed to undermine Grendon prison’s radical methodology
by David Wilson
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
The murder of Robert Coello in August at HMP Grendon should not be allowed to undermine the incredible work done there since its foundation in 1960 – it is still the only prison in Europe to operate wholly as a therapeutic community – or prevent us from celebrating the 50th anniversary of this extraordinary institution.
Grendon has always had its detractors, and lately those who are less inclined to support a prison that works psycho-dynamically with serious and violent offenders have pointed to the costs involved. Grendon does cost approximately £48,000 per prisoner place per annum, which is roughly £10,000 more per annum more than other Category B prisons.
But is this a fair comparison? Given the type of prisoner that Grendon accepts – recently described as “damaged, dangerous and disturbed”, with elevated psychopathy scores, perhaps a fairer cost comparison would be with Rampton, Ashworth and Broadmoor, or with the dangerous and severe personality disorder units within the high security estate. Compared with these, Grendon’s costs are insignificant. A place at Rampton, for example, costs £250,000 a year. One in the DSPD unit at Whitemoor costs £200,000 a year.
But what should we make of the murder of Robert Coello? Perhaps the first thing to say is that violence within prisons is endemic. Only last month, the Howard League for Penal Reform published evidence that assaults in prison had increased by 61 per cent between 2000-2009 and that in 2009 there were 15,180 acts of violence – that’s about 40 per day. So, too, murder in prison is more common than the Ministry of Justice would care to admit. In 1999, for example, the murder rate in prison was six times higher than the murder rate in the community.
Historically, Grendon has had the lowest rate of violence within the entire penal system. It does not even have a segregation unit. Assaults on staff, on prisoners, rooftop demonstrations, riots, hostage taking incidents and escapes are so rare as to be virtually non-existent. All this makes the murder of Robert Coello all the more worrying. Perhaps, though, this has less to do with any underlying problem with the therapeutic regime at Grendon and rather more to do with the reality that the prison regime keeps being cut in order to save money. This process is only likely get worse, given the financial cuts being required at the Ministry of Justice. There is now no therapy at Grendon between Friday afternoons and Monday mornings and it is becoming rare for therapy groups to be facilitated by the same staff member. The small charity that supports the prison – the Friends of Grendon – is trying to raise £60,000 to restore therapy sessions to Friday afternoons.
What is worse is that all this should have been foreseen. It is not as if there haven’t been plenty of people warning the government that Grendon was in danger of suffering death by a thousand cuts. Anne Owers, the outgoing Chief Inspector of Prisons, said it was “of enormous concern that cumulative financial efficiencies had begun to erode Grendon’s capacity to deliver a therapeutic regime”. The prison’s independent monitoring board has been similarly worried and at pains to point out what financial cuts are doing to Grendon.
There is an old Chinese curse that damns you to “live in interesting times”. That is what is going to happen as far Grendon is concerned in the coming months. First, there will be the various investigations into the circumstances surrounding the murder of Robert Coello. Then we will have to see if the Ministry of Justice continues to support the specialist work of the prison. There are some signs that it might. Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt stated in July that he was “impressed” by the work of Grendon. He recognised that what happens there is “no soft option – it is hard work”. The minister even wanted to see how the therapeutic work of Grendon could be transferred into the rest of the prison estate. He now needs to make good on those words.
Having alluded to a Chinese curse, it can also be pointed out that the Chinese symbol for “crisis” is a mixture of two other symbols: danger and opportunity. The dangers for Grendon in this crisis are all too obvious, but there are also opportunities that could come out of tragedy. There is the opportunity above all for the Ministry of Justice to give the proper resources to Grendon to do the job it is meant to do, which it has been doing for the past 50 years with precious little support.
David Wilson is professor of criminology and criminal justice at Birmingham City University and chair of the Commission on English Prisons
Votes for prisoners
Votes for prisoners
There is an argument that prisoners have forfeited their right to vote by breaching their contract with society
Sir, Of all the issues liable to cause tension with his Tory partners it is odd for Nick Clegg to select that of votes for prisoners, demanded by the European Court of Human Rights (report, Sept 20). On this issue the court has exceeded its brief in interpreting the Code of Human Rights. The proper role of a code of rights is to protect rights such as command virtually universal assent, as permanent principles against transitory public passions or the convenience of transient governments. Only on that basis do unelected judges properly override democratic parliaments.
In the case of prisoners there is a highly plausible argument of principle that they have forfeited their right to vote by breaching their contract with society. There are pragmatic grounds for giving prisoners votes, but Lib Dems should be challenging, not backing, the court’s judgment, which sets a dangerous precedent.
Edmund Gray
Oxford
Prisoners’ rights
In a democracy, voting in elections is a basic human right. Imprisonment serves to deprive people of their liberty, not their identity
Sir, Edmund Gray (“Votes for prisoners”, letter, Sept 22) argues that prisoners should be disenfranchised because they have breached their contract with society and sets this against what he sees as less substantial pragmatic grounds for giving prisoners the vote.
In a democracy, voting in elections is a basic human right. Imprisonment serves to deprive people of their liberty, not their identity.
Enfranchisement is a clear statement that someone retains a stake in society and is wholly in keeping with notions of rehabilitation and efforts to prevent reoffending. A large majority of countries in the Council of Europe already give prisoners the vote.
After six years of prevarication and denial by its predecessors, the coalition Government must abide by a court judgment, in just the same way that it would wish its citizens to be respectful of the law.
Geoff Dobson
Deputy Director
Prison Reform Trust
London EC1
John Hirst
September 23, 2010 1:33 PM
Edmund Gray, you Sir, if you don't mind me saying it, are a blithering idiot!
This is not about the social contract. In any event, many prisoners would contend that society was first to breach the social contract during their upbringing. Then there is the UK failing to honour its obligations to abide by the Convention and Court decisions. If that is not a breach of contact then I don't know what is.
I am annoyed at the media for the way they keep getting people to speak or write about a subject they know nothing about. In your case, silence is golden!
(Source: The Times - Letters to the Editor)
There is an argument that prisoners have forfeited their right to vote by breaching their contract with society
Sir, Of all the issues liable to cause tension with his Tory partners it is odd for Nick Clegg to select that of votes for prisoners, demanded by the European Court of Human Rights (report, Sept 20). On this issue the court has exceeded its brief in interpreting the Code of Human Rights. The proper role of a code of rights is to protect rights such as command virtually universal assent, as permanent principles against transitory public passions or the convenience of transient governments. Only on that basis do unelected judges properly override democratic parliaments.
In the case of prisoners there is a highly plausible argument of principle that they have forfeited their right to vote by breaching their contract with society. There are pragmatic grounds for giving prisoners votes, but Lib Dems should be challenging, not backing, the court’s judgment, which sets a dangerous precedent.
Edmund Gray
Oxford
Prisoners’ rights
In a democracy, voting in elections is a basic human right. Imprisonment serves to deprive people of their liberty, not their identity
Sir, Edmund Gray (“Votes for prisoners”, letter, Sept 22) argues that prisoners should be disenfranchised because they have breached their contract with society and sets this against what he sees as less substantial pragmatic grounds for giving prisoners the vote.
In a democracy, voting in elections is a basic human right. Imprisonment serves to deprive people of their liberty, not their identity.
Enfranchisement is a clear statement that someone retains a stake in society and is wholly in keeping with notions of rehabilitation and efforts to prevent reoffending. A large majority of countries in the Council of Europe already give prisoners the vote.
After six years of prevarication and denial by its predecessors, the coalition Government must abide by a court judgment, in just the same way that it would wish its citizens to be respectful of the law.
Geoff Dobson
Deputy Director
Prison Reform Trust
London EC1
John Hirst
September 23, 2010 1:33 PM
Edmund Gray, you Sir, if you don't mind me saying it, are a blithering idiot!
This is not about the social contract. In any event, many prisoners would contend that society was first to breach the social contract during their upbringing. Then there is the UK failing to honour its obligations to abide by the Convention and Court decisions. If that is not a breach of contact then I don't know what is.
I am annoyed at the media for the way they keep getting people to speak or write about a subject they know nothing about. In your case, silence is golden!
(Source: The Times - Letters to the Editor)
Dominic Grieve, Attorney General, involved in assault and criminal damage
Dominic Grieve, Attorney General, involved in assault and criminal damage
Coalition in big trouble as Nile Gardiner fisked
Coalition in big trouble as Nile Gardiner fisked
Nick Clegg’s votes for prisoners plan is a massive insult to victims of crime
By Nile Gardiner
It is hard to think of a more insensitive policy proposal guaranteed to alienate the British public from the Coalition government than a move to give prisoners the right to vote. Not only is the plan, pushed by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, a further shameful surrender of British sovereignty within Europe, it is hugely insulting to millions of victims of crime.
The Times noted today in its piece “Clegg goes into battle for prisoners’ voting rights”:
Nick Clegg’s officials said last night that the blanket ban on Britain’s 88,000 prisoners taking part in elections cannot continue. The Deputy Prime Minister took responsibility for the issue from Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, in July.
Britain is under pressure to act because of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights and criticism from the Council of Europe. Prisoners are now being encouraged to sue the Government and receive up to £750 each in compensation.
Neil O’Brien has written a detailed post examining the legal background to this disturbing development, and Telegraph readers can find the original 2005 European Court ruling which has prompted Clegg’s decision here.
Nick Clegg’s move should come as no surprise, given his long-standing track record of support for a Eurofederalist vision of Britain’s future. It will provoke a serious split in the Coalition and a furious backlash on the Conservative backbenches. I hope that the Prime Minister will take a clear stand against his deputy’s position, and side with the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators of it.
Clegg’s wrongheaded stance should prompt a full-scale debate in Westminster and across the UK over the future of the Human Rights Act introduced by Tony Blair in 2000, which effectively made British human rights law subservient to the fundamentally undemocratic European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Prior to the election, the Conservatives had pledged to draw up a new Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act, which has increasingly been used by Islamist terrorists to avoid deportation. They have since dropped the idea, no doubt to appease the Liberal Democrats and to avoid a clash with Europe.
As The Daily Telegraph reported last November, then Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve had strong reservations over what he called “a degree of deference to Strasbourg”, and made it clear that a Conservative administration would reserve the right to ignore European human rights rulings:
Mr Grieve said in a speech that the current Human Rights Act had been “interpreted as requiring a degree of deference to Strasbourg that I believe was and should be neither required nor intended”.
Instead, he said, a new Bill of Rights – which would replace the Human Rights Act – would make clear that British courts could allow for UK common law to take precedence over decisions by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Speaking at Middle Temple in central London, Mr Grieve said: “We would want to reword it to emphasise the leeway of our national courts to have regard to our own national jurisprudence and traditions and to other common law precedents while still acknowledging the relevance of Strasbourg Court decisions.”
You can read Grieve’s speech in full here.
There is no reason why a sovereign nation with a great and proud history of advancing liberty and freedom should be bound by European human rights law. The British public never voted on the introduction of the European Convention on Human Rights, and should be given the opportunity to reject it through a referendum. The notion that convicted criminals should have the right to participate in elections, against the will of Parliament and the British people, is an affront to democracy and the principle of national sovereignty.
Nile Gardiner now fisked...
“Nick Clegg’s votes for prisoners plan is a massive insult to victims of crime”.
There was me thinking that the plan to get prisoners the vote was my idea. I would have thought that Nile Gardiner would have spotted the clue what with the Prisoners Votes Case bearing the title Hirst v UK (No2). I did ask the Council of Europe to confirm whether I had ownership of the case bearing my name, and they replied in the affirmative. Nowhere in the blog post does Nile Gardiner explain why he thinks my plan is a massive insult to victims of crime. I do know that the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Court of Human Rights referred to me as being a victim, it follows that the 75,000 convicted prisoners denied the vote are also victims of State abuse.
“It is hard to think of a more insensitive policy proposal guaranteed to alienate the British public from the Coalition government than a move to give prisoners the right to vote. Not only is the plan, pushed by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, a further shameful surrender of British sovereignty within Europe, it is hugely insulting to millions of victims of crime.”
It is amusing that the Director of a think tank, the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, and someone claiming this to be an area in which he has expertise, finds it hard to think. If Nile Gardiner had taken the time to read the Court’s judgment, he would have seen that the Labour government had argued that giving prisoners the vote would offend public opinion. The Court rejected this line of argument by stating that it was not a ground to deny a vulnerable group in society the basic human right to the franchise because to do so might offend public opinion. The Court’s reasoning is based upon the Actio Popularis principle which is designed to protect vulnerable groups in society from society at large and/or the State. Rather than being insensitive it is a very sensitive perception of victimisation. What is insensitive is Nile Gardiner’s ignorance, arrogance, prejudice and fear. Furthermore, the majority of those who took part in Labour’s consultation exercises favoured all convicted prisoners getting the franchise. As for British sovereignty, it is obvious when a Member State joins the Council of Europe that some national sovereignty will be sacrificed for the common good in Europe. What is shameful is that the UK did not incorporate the Convention into UK domestic law 50 years ago. As for surrender, this is what a losing side has to do to end a battle. The Association of Prisoners are victorious. We accept the coalition government’s White Flag.
“Nick Clegg’s officials said last night that the blanket ban on Britain’s 88,000 prisoners taking part in elections cannot continue. The Deputy Prime Minister took responsibility for the issue from Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, in July”.
Nick Clegg’s officials? I thought we have a coalition government? Whilst the Tories and LibDems are separate political parties, they are united in government. Let’s stop all this Them and Us nonsense! Within that 88,000 there are 10,000 Remand prisoners who already have the right to vote. The last government gave in on these in an attempt to hold the line, but the ECtHR crossed that line. I am mounting an injunction to prevent the buck being passed from Kenneth Clarke to Nick Clegg. The July agreement to that extent is unlawful.
“Britain is under pressure to act because of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights and criticism from the Council of Europe. Prisoners are now being encouraged to sue the Government and receive up to £750 each in compensation”.
Actually, it is the UK and not Britain under pressure to act. Whilst it is true that the Council of Europe is criticising the UK for its unwarranted delay over 5 years, this is not the half of it because it is the Committee of Ministers job to supervise execution of the Court’s judgments. The Lisbon Treaty gave the Council of Europe, Court and Committee of Ministers new powers and this was the subject of the Interlaken Conference 18-19 February 2010, and the Interlaken Declaration was signed on behalf of the UK by the then Attorney General, Baroness Scotland. The new powers came into force on 1 June 2010. Based on case law from the US, I estimate that damages could be as much as £1,000 per prisoner or £135m in total for the loss of the vote in both the European and English elections.
“Neil O’Brien has written a detailed post examining the legal background to this disturbing development, and Telegraph readers can find the original 2005 European Court ruling which has prompted Clegg’s decision here”.
I wouldn’t call a much needed reform a “disturbing development”, rather I think it is a positive step forward.
“Nick Clegg’s move should come as no surprise, given his long-standing track record of support for a Eurofederalist vision of Britain’s future. It will provoke a serious split in the Coalition and a furious backlash on the Conservative backbenches. I hope that the Prime Minister will take a clear stand against his deputy’s position, and side with the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators of it”.
What Nile Gardiner either is not aware of or conveniently ignoring is that Winston S. Churchill had the vision of a United States of Europe. So, this harmonisation within Europe has been going on since the end of World War 2. It is those who still think we have the British Empire who are out of step with developments in Europe and not Nick Clegg who is a former MEP. If there is a serious split in the coalition, it will make no difference to the commitment of the UK to abide by the Convention and Court decisions. All it will mean is that the coalition can no longer continue in government and it will force another general election. I have said all along that this issue could bring down the government. Similarly, if the Tory backbenchers vote against the measure and it leads to the defeat of the government it will mean another general election. Isn’t prisoner power wonderful? If Cameron challenges Nick Clegg after giving him the responsibility for the issue, not only will the LibDems withdraw from the coalition but once again it will bring down the government. Nile Gardiner is being disingenuous to claim that this is an issue between victims of crime on the one scale and prisoners on the other scale, because the victims of crime are not in the equation at all. The victims here are the prisoners and it is between them and the State which is abusing their human rights that is the issue. The law-abiding prisoners and the law-breaking State.
“Clegg’s wrongheaded stance should prompt a full-scale debate in Westminster and across the UK over the future of the Human Rights Act introduced by Tony Blair in 2000, which effectively made British human rights law subservient to the fundamentally undemocratic European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)”.
Nick Clegg is not wrong-headed over supporting prisoners getting the vote. Where Clegg was wrong-headed was when he rowed back from the position of all convicted to get the vote under Charles Kennedy, to only some convicted prisoners to get the vote. My case, and then Frodl v Austria re-emphasised it that all convicted prisoners must get the vote. Actually, the Act was introduced by Parliament in 1998 and not by Tony Blair in 2000. Blair introduced the Bill for the Act, and when it was passed by Parliament it did not come into force for another 2 years. This was to give the judges and public authorities time to get used to the idea that people are entitled to human rights. Some dinosaurs still have not got used to it after 10 years! I would welcome the HRA being amended to make it compatible with the Convention, because it was badly drafted in parts and watered down in others to appease those in power who were scared of the thought of people power. The Convention is not undemocratic because the UK signed up to it. Until the Act was passed we did not have human rights law in this country, therefore it could not be made subservient to the Convention. The Act incorporated the Convention (minus Articles 1 and 13) into domestic law. What the Interlaken Declaration achieved is that Human Rights must be seen as higher law in Member States. In effect, it means a written constitution for the UK for the first time in its constitutional history. It also means that the UK must apply the subsidiarity principle from European law and this binds the courts, Executive and Parliament. Supremacy of Parliament and the Separation of Powers as we know it must adapt to fall into line with Europe.
“Prior to the election, the Conservatives had pledged to draw up a new Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act, which has increasingly been used by Islamist terrorists to avoid deportation. They have since dropped the idea, no doubt to appease the Liberal Democrats and to avoid a clash with Europe”.
This British Bill of Rights was always going to be a non-starter, and it is time that the racists are no longer tolerated and appeased.
“As The Daily Telegraph reported last November, then Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve had strong reservations over what he called “a degree of deference to Strasbourg”, and made it clear that a Conservative administration would reserve the right to ignore European human rights rulings:
Mr Grieve said in a speech that the current Human Rights Act had been “interpreted as requiring a degree of deference to Strasbourg that I believe was and should be neither required nor intended”.”.
Dominic Grieve, it has to be said, is not the sharpest pencil in the box. The UK in the Treaty of London (1949) (The Statute of the Council of Europe), agreed to abide by the Convention and abide by the decisions of the ECtHR. However, UK courts only took these into account and did not consider them binding in domestic law until the Convention was incorporated into the HRA. Now the courts apply the Act rather than show deference to Strasbourg. When the Convention states that the ECtHR decision is final, unless the UK withdraws from the Council of Europe then it follows that the UK must show deference to Strasbourg. European law must prevail on matters relating to Europe, and where domestic law is in conflict the UK is under an obligation to harmonise it to the European standard. It is what being part of Europe is all about. If the UK wants to remain an island entirely unto itself, it has no option but to get out of Europe. Personally, I believe that as a nation we are better off in Europe.
“Instead, he said, a new Bill of Rights – which would replace the Human Rights Act – would make clear that British courts could allow for UK common law to take precedence over decisions by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Speaking at Middle Temple in central London, Mr Grieve said:
“We would want to reword it to emphasise the leeway of our national courts to have regard to our own national jurisprudence and traditions and to other common law precedents while still acknowledging the relevance of Strasbourg Court decisions.”
You can read Grieve’s speech in full here.”.
What Grieve was suggesting was that we go back in time or go forward by going backwards! There is a place for the common law, and HRA to work in conjunction with European law, but no place for us in Europe if we insist on trying to dictate terms to the other 46 Member States of Europe whilst maintaining UK independence. It’s a team game we are either in or out, we cannot have it both ways. Given that Dominic Grieve is the Attorney General, the legal adviser to the Crown and government, it has to be questioned whether he is fit for the purpose. He quite obviously did not get the job on merit!
“There is no reason why a sovereign nation with a great and proud history of advancing liberty and freedom should be bound by European human rights law. The British public never voted on the introduction of the European Convention on Human Rights, and should be given the opportunity to reject it through a referendum. The notion that convicted criminals should have the right to participate in elections, against the will of Parliament and the British people, is an affront to democracy and the principle of national sovereignty”.
The problem with this is that it is complete bunkum. The UK record of advancing liberty and freedom is atrocious. In Europe, they refer to the people as citizens. In this country we are still referred to as subjects of the Queen! It is precisely because we have the worst human rights record as adjudged by the ECtHR that the UK needs an outside body to watch over us. Neither the judges nor Parliament nor the Executive have shown that they can be trusted to deliver the minimum standards of human rights. We are 50 years behind Europe in this respect. 46 other Member States look upon us and pity our plight. If the UK pulls out of the Convention, will the last person to leave the UK switch out the lights? The reason why the ECtHR decided that prisoners should have the vote is because for too long the Executive, Parliament and the Judiciary did not show the political will for reforms which would lead to the UK becoming a civilised nation. The civilised countries of Europe saw this as an affront to common decent standards for all human beings. For too long the King has been parading in the nude and claiming to be wearing a suit of green. Now he has been exposed because I said what needed to be said. I was fed up of living a lie. The problem with Nile Gardiner is that he is a hypocrite. For a so-called expert dealing with the US led alliance against rogue states, not to see when the UK is itself a rogue state in Europe shows that he is either blind or as daft as George Bush and that he has the morals of Tony Blair going into an illegal war with Iraq and claiming he did what he believed to be right! It is worth remembering that the prisoners in Iraq do have the right to vote. When it is in the US and UK interests they supported prisoners having the vote. When it is in the prisoners own interests, funny how the US and UK are against the idea isn’t it?
Nick Clegg’s votes for prisoners plan is a massive insult to victims of crime
By Nile Gardiner
It is hard to think of a more insensitive policy proposal guaranteed to alienate the British public from the Coalition government than a move to give prisoners the right to vote. Not only is the plan, pushed by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, a further shameful surrender of British sovereignty within Europe, it is hugely insulting to millions of victims of crime.
The Times noted today in its piece “Clegg goes into battle for prisoners’ voting rights”:
Nick Clegg’s officials said last night that the blanket ban on Britain’s 88,000 prisoners taking part in elections cannot continue. The Deputy Prime Minister took responsibility for the issue from Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, in July.
Britain is under pressure to act because of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights and criticism from the Council of Europe. Prisoners are now being encouraged to sue the Government and receive up to £750 each in compensation.
Neil O’Brien has written a detailed post examining the legal background to this disturbing development, and Telegraph readers can find the original 2005 European Court ruling which has prompted Clegg’s decision here.
Nick Clegg’s move should come as no surprise, given his long-standing track record of support for a Eurofederalist vision of Britain’s future. It will provoke a serious split in the Coalition and a furious backlash on the Conservative backbenches. I hope that the Prime Minister will take a clear stand against his deputy’s position, and side with the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators of it.
Clegg’s wrongheaded stance should prompt a full-scale debate in Westminster and across the UK over the future of the Human Rights Act introduced by Tony Blair in 2000, which effectively made British human rights law subservient to the fundamentally undemocratic European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Prior to the election, the Conservatives had pledged to draw up a new Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act, which has increasingly been used by Islamist terrorists to avoid deportation. They have since dropped the idea, no doubt to appease the Liberal Democrats and to avoid a clash with Europe.
As The Daily Telegraph reported last November, then Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve had strong reservations over what he called “a degree of deference to Strasbourg”, and made it clear that a Conservative administration would reserve the right to ignore European human rights rulings:
Mr Grieve said in a speech that the current Human Rights Act had been “interpreted as requiring a degree of deference to Strasbourg that I believe was and should be neither required nor intended”.
Instead, he said, a new Bill of Rights – which would replace the Human Rights Act – would make clear that British courts could allow for UK common law to take precedence over decisions by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Speaking at Middle Temple in central London, Mr Grieve said: “We would want to reword it to emphasise the leeway of our national courts to have regard to our own national jurisprudence and traditions and to other common law precedents while still acknowledging the relevance of Strasbourg Court decisions.”
You can read Grieve’s speech in full here.
There is no reason why a sovereign nation with a great and proud history of advancing liberty and freedom should be bound by European human rights law. The British public never voted on the introduction of the European Convention on Human Rights, and should be given the opportunity to reject it through a referendum. The notion that convicted criminals should have the right to participate in elections, against the will of Parliament and the British people, is an affront to democracy and the principle of national sovereignty.
Nile Gardiner now fisked...
“Nick Clegg’s votes for prisoners plan is a massive insult to victims of crime”.
There was me thinking that the plan to get prisoners the vote was my idea. I would have thought that Nile Gardiner would have spotted the clue what with the Prisoners Votes Case bearing the title Hirst v UK (No2). I did ask the Council of Europe to confirm whether I had ownership of the case bearing my name, and they replied in the affirmative. Nowhere in the blog post does Nile Gardiner explain why he thinks my plan is a massive insult to victims of crime. I do know that the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Court of Human Rights referred to me as being a victim, it follows that the 75,000 convicted prisoners denied the vote are also victims of State abuse.
“It is hard to think of a more insensitive policy proposal guaranteed to alienate the British public from the Coalition government than a move to give prisoners the right to vote. Not only is the plan, pushed by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, a further shameful surrender of British sovereignty within Europe, it is hugely insulting to millions of victims of crime.”
It is amusing that the Director of a think tank, the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, and someone claiming this to be an area in which he has expertise, finds it hard to think. If Nile Gardiner had taken the time to read the Court’s judgment, he would have seen that the Labour government had argued that giving prisoners the vote would offend public opinion. The Court rejected this line of argument by stating that it was not a ground to deny a vulnerable group in society the basic human right to the franchise because to do so might offend public opinion. The Court’s reasoning is based upon the Actio Popularis principle which is designed to protect vulnerable groups in society from society at large and/or the State. Rather than being insensitive it is a very sensitive perception of victimisation. What is insensitive is Nile Gardiner’s ignorance, arrogance, prejudice and fear. Furthermore, the majority of those who took part in Labour’s consultation exercises favoured all convicted prisoners getting the franchise. As for British sovereignty, it is obvious when a Member State joins the Council of Europe that some national sovereignty will be sacrificed for the common good in Europe. What is shameful is that the UK did not incorporate the Convention into UK domestic law 50 years ago. As for surrender, this is what a losing side has to do to end a battle. The Association of Prisoners are victorious. We accept the coalition government’s White Flag.
“Nick Clegg’s officials said last night that the blanket ban on Britain’s 88,000 prisoners taking part in elections cannot continue. The Deputy Prime Minister took responsibility for the issue from Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, in July”.
Nick Clegg’s officials? I thought we have a coalition government? Whilst the Tories and LibDems are separate political parties, they are united in government. Let’s stop all this Them and Us nonsense! Within that 88,000 there are 10,000 Remand prisoners who already have the right to vote. The last government gave in on these in an attempt to hold the line, but the ECtHR crossed that line. I am mounting an injunction to prevent the buck being passed from Kenneth Clarke to Nick Clegg. The July agreement to that extent is unlawful.
“Britain is under pressure to act because of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights and criticism from the Council of Europe. Prisoners are now being encouraged to sue the Government and receive up to £750 each in compensation”.
Actually, it is the UK and not Britain under pressure to act. Whilst it is true that the Council of Europe is criticising the UK for its unwarranted delay over 5 years, this is not the half of it because it is the Committee of Ministers job to supervise execution of the Court’s judgments. The Lisbon Treaty gave the Council of Europe, Court and Committee of Ministers new powers and this was the subject of the Interlaken Conference 18-19 February 2010, and the Interlaken Declaration was signed on behalf of the UK by the then Attorney General, Baroness Scotland. The new powers came into force on 1 June 2010. Based on case law from the US, I estimate that damages could be as much as £1,000 per prisoner or £135m in total for the loss of the vote in both the European and English elections.
“Neil O’Brien has written a detailed post examining the legal background to this disturbing development, and Telegraph readers can find the original 2005 European Court ruling which has prompted Clegg’s decision here”.
I wouldn’t call a much needed reform a “disturbing development”, rather I think it is a positive step forward.
“Nick Clegg’s move should come as no surprise, given his long-standing track record of support for a Eurofederalist vision of Britain’s future. It will provoke a serious split in the Coalition and a furious backlash on the Conservative backbenches. I hope that the Prime Minister will take a clear stand against his deputy’s position, and side with the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators of it”.
What Nile Gardiner either is not aware of or conveniently ignoring is that Winston S. Churchill had the vision of a United States of Europe. So, this harmonisation within Europe has been going on since the end of World War 2. It is those who still think we have the British Empire who are out of step with developments in Europe and not Nick Clegg who is a former MEP. If there is a serious split in the coalition, it will make no difference to the commitment of the UK to abide by the Convention and Court decisions. All it will mean is that the coalition can no longer continue in government and it will force another general election. I have said all along that this issue could bring down the government. Similarly, if the Tory backbenchers vote against the measure and it leads to the defeat of the government it will mean another general election. Isn’t prisoner power wonderful? If Cameron challenges Nick Clegg after giving him the responsibility for the issue, not only will the LibDems withdraw from the coalition but once again it will bring down the government. Nile Gardiner is being disingenuous to claim that this is an issue between victims of crime on the one scale and prisoners on the other scale, because the victims of crime are not in the equation at all. The victims here are the prisoners and it is between them and the State which is abusing their human rights that is the issue. The law-abiding prisoners and the law-breaking State.
“Clegg’s wrongheaded stance should prompt a full-scale debate in Westminster and across the UK over the future of the Human Rights Act introduced by Tony Blair in 2000, which effectively made British human rights law subservient to the fundamentally undemocratic European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)”.
Nick Clegg is not wrong-headed over supporting prisoners getting the vote. Where Clegg was wrong-headed was when he rowed back from the position of all convicted to get the vote under Charles Kennedy, to only some convicted prisoners to get the vote. My case, and then Frodl v Austria re-emphasised it that all convicted prisoners must get the vote. Actually, the Act was introduced by Parliament in 1998 and not by Tony Blair in 2000. Blair introduced the Bill for the Act, and when it was passed by Parliament it did not come into force for another 2 years. This was to give the judges and public authorities time to get used to the idea that people are entitled to human rights. Some dinosaurs still have not got used to it after 10 years! I would welcome the HRA being amended to make it compatible with the Convention, because it was badly drafted in parts and watered down in others to appease those in power who were scared of the thought of people power. The Convention is not undemocratic because the UK signed up to it. Until the Act was passed we did not have human rights law in this country, therefore it could not be made subservient to the Convention. The Act incorporated the Convention (minus Articles 1 and 13) into domestic law. What the Interlaken Declaration achieved is that Human Rights must be seen as higher law in Member States. In effect, it means a written constitution for the UK for the first time in its constitutional history. It also means that the UK must apply the subsidiarity principle from European law and this binds the courts, Executive and Parliament. Supremacy of Parliament and the Separation of Powers as we know it must adapt to fall into line with Europe.
“Prior to the election, the Conservatives had pledged to draw up a new Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act, which has increasingly been used by Islamist terrorists to avoid deportation. They have since dropped the idea, no doubt to appease the Liberal Democrats and to avoid a clash with Europe”.
This British Bill of Rights was always going to be a non-starter, and it is time that the racists are no longer tolerated and appeased.
“As The Daily Telegraph reported last November, then Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve had strong reservations over what he called “a degree of deference to Strasbourg”, and made it clear that a Conservative administration would reserve the right to ignore European human rights rulings:
Mr Grieve said in a speech that the current Human Rights Act had been “interpreted as requiring a degree of deference to Strasbourg that I believe was and should be neither required nor intended”.”.
Dominic Grieve, it has to be said, is not the sharpest pencil in the box. The UK in the Treaty of London (1949) (The Statute of the Council of Europe), agreed to abide by the Convention and abide by the decisions of the ECtHR. However, UK courts only took these into account and did not consider them binding in domestic law until the Convention was incorporated into the HRA. Now the courts apply the Act rather than show deference to Strasbourg. When the Convention states that the ECtHR decision is final, unless the UK withdraws from the Council of Europe then it follows that the UK must show deference to Strasbourg. European law must prevail on matters relating to Europe, and where domestic law is in conflict the UK is under an obligation to harmonise it to the European standard. It is what being part of Europe is all about. If the UK wants to remain an island entirely unto itself, it has no option but to get out of Europe. Personally, I believe that as a nation we are better off in Europe.
“Instead, he said, a new Bill of Rights – which would replace the Human Rights Act – would make clear that British courts could allow for UK common law to take precedence over decisions by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Speaking at Middle Temple in central London, Mr Grieve said:
“We would want to reword it to emphasise the leeway of our national courts to have regard to our own national jurisprudence and traditions and to other common law precedents while still acknowledging the relevance of Strasbourg Court decisions.”
You can read Grieve’s speech in full here.”.
What Grieve was suggesting was that we go back in time or go forward by going backwards! There is a place for the common law, and HRA to work in conjunction with European law, but no place for us in Europe if we insist on trying to dictate terms to the other 46 Member States of Europe whilst maintaining UK independence. It’s a team game we are either in or out, we cannot have it both ways. Given that Dominic Grieve is the Attorney General, the legal adviser to the Crown and government, it has to be questioned whether he is fit for the purpose. He quite obviously did not get the job on merit!
“There is no reason why a sovereign nation with a great and proud history of advancing liberty and freedom should be bound by European human rights law. The British public never voted on the introduction of the European Convention on Human Rights, and should be given the opportunity to reject it through a referendum. The notion that convicted criminals should have the right to participate in elections, against the will of Parliament and the British people, is an affront to democracy and the principle of national sovereignty”.
The problem with this is that it is complete bunkum. The UK record of advancing liberty and freedom is atrocious. In Europe, they refer to the people as citizens. In this country we are still referred to as subjects of the Queen! It is precisely because we have the worst human rights record as adjudged by the ECtHR that the UK needs an outside body to watch over us. Neither the judges nor Parliament nor the Executive have shown that they can be trusted to deliver the minimum standards of human rights. We are 50 years behind Europe in this respect. 46 other Member States look upon us and pity our plight. If the UK pulls out of the Convention, will the last person to leave the UK switch out the lights? The reason why the ECtHR decided that prisoners should have the vote is because for too long the Executive, Parliament and the Judiciary did not show the political will for reforms which would lead to the UK becoming a civilised nation. The civilised countries of Europe saw this as an affront to common decent standards for all human beings. For too long the King has been parading in the nude and claiming to be wearing a suit of green. Now he has been exposed because I said what needed to be said. I was fed up of living a lie. The problem with Nile Gardiner is that he is a hypocrite. For a so-called expert dealing with the US led alliance against rogue states, not to see when the UK is itself a rogue state in Europe shows that he is either blind or as daft as George Bush and that he has the morals of Tony Blair going into an illegal war with Iraq and claiming he did what he believed to be right! It is worth remembering that the prisoners in Iraq do have the right to vote. When it is in the US and UK interests they supported prisoners having the vote. When it is in the prisoners own interests, funny how the US and UK are against the idea isn’t it?