Jailhouselawyer claims David Cameron's scalp

Jailhouselawyer claims David Cameron's scalp



I intend to put into context the Daily Express headline and the article following it. I would hardly say that off the cuff remarks by two expenses fiddling Tory MPs, Priti Patel and Claire Perry, constitutes an outrage. For a start the "Paki" Priti Patel is far from pretty, in fact she is "ugly" as hell! And Claire Perry is a banker, which as we all know, is a euphemism for a wanker! Unlike the foreign import Patel speaking to the xenophobic Daily Express, I am a Brit born and bred. Neither of these outspoken Tory MPs have the foggiest clue what they are gobbing off about, whereas I am, on the other hand, a recognised expert in this area.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), can hardly be accused of meddling in the issue of prisoners votes given that the UK signed up to the Council of Europe and as such agreed to abide by the Convention and be bound by the Court decisions. PACE is merely stating that on the issue of prisoners’ votes the UK is failing to honour its obligations under the Convention. It is one of the responsibilities of PACE to ensure full compliance by Member States of their obligations. What is happening here is that the UK is embarrassed like a kid caught with its hands in the cookie jar.

Given the untruthful headline, it is no surprise that the sub-heading is also untruthful. The PACE attack is not against Britain, per se, rather it is against the UK State, which is, the Executive, Parliament, and Judiciary, and not against the Great British Public. It is the UK State which is the guilty party in all of this and as the public is not part of the State the public is an innocent party in No Man’s Land caught up in the cross-fire. In Hirst v UK (No2), the Prisoners Votes Case, the UK attempted to drag the public into the issue and the Court quite rightly excluded the public. Therefore, it is wrong for MPs and the media to keep trying to drag the public into the mess created by the State. It is also wrong for the Daily Express to put “delaying” into inverted commas to give the impression that it is not true that the State has delayed on this issue. The truth of the matter is that there has now been an unjustified over 5 year delay in fully complying with the Court’s judgment, and even under English law there is the legal principle which states that “justice delayed is justice denied”. It is also questionable to claim that the ruling is controversial. Rather, the controversy centres on the UK’s unacceptable attempt to ignore the Court ruling.

By putting this whole thing into context, it allows for a different perspective. For example, whilst the Daily Express states that PACE is warning David Cameron the reality is that PACE is sending a warning to the UK. In other words, David Cameron is an insignificant figure. Whether the Number Ten rat is made Prime Minister or not makes no difference to PACE, because Cameron is but a figure head of the government and it is the 3 arms of the State (Executive, Parliament and Judiciary) which are in big trouble not simply the leader of the Tory party. The extreme right wing Daily Express is elevating Cameron to a larger role player in this whole affair than he deserves credit for.

It is a bit rich of the extremist Daily Express to call the PACE “Euro fanatics”. There are some fanatics within the Council of Europe, but these tend to be Euro-sceptics like UKIP’s Nigel Farage, David Campbell Bannerman and Godfrey Bloom, and BNP’s Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, all of them would not be out of place in Hitler’s Third Reich.

Likewise, it is a bit rich coming from Priti Patel labelling PACE as bullies when it is the UK which has been found guilty of bullying convicted prisoners by denying them their human right to the vote. She is attempting to dodge her guilt by claiming that the issue has now become one of who governs Britain. It could not be further from the truth. Only those Member States which uphold the principles of Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law can remain part of the Council of Europe and European Union. She refers to “our sovereign Parliament”, however, according to the Council of Europe sovereignty rests with the people and not Parliament. If Priti Patel was a honest woman instead of being corrupt then she would not be calling for the government and Parliament to stand up to Pace, rather she would be condemning them for their abuse of the most vulnerable group in society – prisoners. If Ms Patel wasn’t so stupid she would understand that passing another Bill trying to establish the UK’s supremacy how it treats prisoners is a non-starter. The only Bill to redress the issue would be one that granted all convicted prisoners the vote.

Claire Perry should try stand up comedy instead of trying to lay down the law to people more qualified in this respect. What is silly is her comment. The Court reaches its judgment after hearing both sides of the argument, and (under the Convention which the UK signed up to) the Court decision is final. The judgment is then passed to the Committee of Ministers whose role it is to supervise execution of the judgment. The interpretation of the judgment is the responsibility of the Council of Europe; it is not for the losing party (the UK) to interpret the judgment to suit their own ends. This was the mistake made by Charles Falconer. And, Jack Straw’s mistake to seek to cover Falconer’s arse over the gaffe. The Court is constituted constitutionally under the Treaty of London (1949) (Statute of the Council of Europe) and under the Convention the Committee of Ministers has constitutional power to apply the Court judgment, as does PACE. So, for Claire Perry to claim that the Court is unconstitutional is nonsense. If she is claiming that under our unwritten constitution the Court is being unconstitutional, this again is nonsense because we do not have one and if we did it cannot bind the ECtHR because the Court is bound by European and international law and not English law. The UK voluntarily signed up to the Council of Europe to become a part of the United States of Europe, so the UK can hardly legitimately claim that Europe is encroaching upon UK territory which we have already surrendered. The UK is only sovereign in matters solely relating to the UK, when the matters involve European law and/or international law then the UK cannot claim sovereignty over these as the reality is that sovereignty rests elsewhere. Far from the Court being mischievous and straying outside of its remit, it is the UK which is being mischievous by ignoring the Court decision and the Council of Europe’s remit.

It almost beggars belief that many Tory MPs are furious at the prospect of the coalition surrendering to the Court decision in Hirst v UK (No2), until it is taken into account that these same rebellious Tory MPs are furious that the electorate did not trust the Tory party enough to give them a clear mandate to govern. And with good reason because these same Tory rebels have demanded that David Cameron interferes with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, to allow them to continue to fiddle their expenses out of the pubic purse without the need to provide receipts. Same old nasty party! These greedy devils are really upset because in a coalition Ministerial positions and frontbench seats have to be shared with the LibDems, and they feel that they are being left out of sticking their snouts in the trough. It beggars belief that the party which is supposed to be big on law and order has now suddenly become the supporter of breaking the law and disorder! A bunch of hypocrites is all they really are!

What this case proves is that David Cameron is neither fit for the purpose of being leader of the Tory party nor fit to lead the country as Prime Minister. He made a bad judgement call appointing Andy Coulson as his spin doctor. The public should be up in arms about having to pay for somebody to feed lies to them. Anyone wishing to live in a live-a-lie world can do so on the internet playing virtual reality games. In the real world, the disgraced ex-Tory Minister Jonathan Aitken was jailed for perjury because “he lied, and lied and lied”. Another disgraced Tory, Lord Archer, was also jailed for perjury for telling lies. Tory Peer, Lord Taylor has just being jailed for lying about his expenses claims, and the jury did not believe his lies in court. In law, it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth which matters. The truth of the matter is that in Hirst v UK (No2), the Prisoners Votes Case, the ECtHR ruled that all convicted prisoners regardless of the seriousness of the crime and length of sentence are entitled to their human right under the Convention. It also states under the Convention that the Court decision is final, and that Member States are under an obligation to speedily and fully comply with the Court decisions. There is no legal authority under the Convention to pick and choose which Articles, or which parts of the Court’s decisions Member States will abide by. It is all or nothing.

In the speech by Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, in a communication to the PACE on Monday, 24 January 2011, he said:

“We have to stress the implementation of the rule of law in order also to once again highlight the interrelationship between rule of law and democratic and human rights principles. First of all, for a Council of Europe member state, the rule of law means full compliance with the European Convention of Human Rights other legally-binding instruments and of course the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights”.

Those Tory backbench rebel MPs are not really challenging David Cameron’s authority because he does not have the public authority to break the law for private purpose. Nor do they have the public authority to seek to break the law for private purpose. In truth, what these rebel MPs are seeking to do is abuse the principles of Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law. Any MP or member of the House of Lords or member of the Judiciary not adhering to these three basic principles should not be holding public office in the UK in this day and age of 2011. Anyone supporting them has either no conscience or has lost their moral compass or is insane.

Photo of a scalped David Cameron: Hat-Tip to White Rabbit