Yesterday's court hearing brought into the public domain more about the case relating to Vicky Haigh.
It, however, has not brought into the public domain all of the issues relating to this case and the judiciary retain control of those aspects of the case.
I am not making any statement as to the details of the underlying care issue. The Judge who took the hearing yesterday was also the judge in P, C and S v The United Kingdom. The link gives the case report from ECtHR on Bailii. In this case the decision was found to be in contravention of a fair trial on a procedural basis.
The same judge (Sir Nicholas Wall) was also a judge in the case which is now RP v The United Kingdom. I have considerable concerns about the way that particular case was handled by the judges concerned.
It remains that I am making no public comment about the underlying care case in respect of Ms Haigh. However,
1. Even if the court's decision is 100% accurate - does that warrant the removal at birth of Ms Haigh's baby. I don't think so.
2. Is it right to set out to imprison someone on the basis of what they have said to a Member of Parliament. I don't think so.
We now have someone imprisoned for 6 months for recording a court hearing and someone else imprisoned for 9 months for talking about court secrets. I think these sentences are excessive at least. In terms of the recording of a court hearings this always appears to be more about protecting the revenues of the transcription services than ensuring the fairness of trials. We do need to review the law from the perspective of allowing independent recording of the audio of court hearings.
It, however, has not brought into the public domain all of the issues relating to this case and the judiciary retain control of those aspects of the case.
I am not making any statement as to the details of the underlying care issue. The Judge who took the hearing yesterday was also the judge in P, C and S v The United Kingdom. The link gives the case report from ECtHR on Bailii. In this case the decision was found to be in contravention of a fair trial on a procedural basis.
The same judge (Sir Nicholas Wall) was also a judge in the case which is now RP v The United Kingdom. I have considerable concerns about the way that particular case was handled by the judges concerned.
It remains that I am making no public comment about the underlying care case in respect of Ms Haigh. However,
1. Even if the court's decision is 100% accurate - does that warrant the removal at birth of Ms Haigh's baby. I don't think so.
2. Is it right to set out to imprison someone on the basis of what they have said to a Member of Parliament. I don't think so.
We now have someone imprisoned for 6 months for recording a court hearing and someone else imprisoned for 9 months for talking about court secrets. I think these sentences are excessive at least. In terms of the recording of a court hearings this always appears to be more about protecting the revenues of the transcription services than ensuring the fairness of trials. We do need to review the law from the perspective of allowing independent recording of the audio of court hearings.
Comments
This woman (who appears to be a few sandwiches short of the proverbial picnic) is in prison for behaviour which you encouraged by abusing Parliamentary Privilege. Do you not feel even slightly responsible for this?
Jimmy - it is worth looking at some of the material available before commenting.
I also made it clear to Vicky Haigh that I did not think Elizabeth Watson was helping.
These have probably not been published.
Hence although I do not think it is my responsibility to discourage her I have in fact discouraged her. Very explicitly.
In retrospect do you think you were unwise to raise the matter on the floor of the House?
But it is quite obvious that the State is always more concerned about disrespect to its authority (hence, the outrageous prison sentences for Contempt of Court) than it does for any actual human beings (hence, the usual non-custodial sentences for violent crime, theft etc.).
I am aware of far more than is in the public domain.
But she has all the evidence that indicates that that order and others are 'fake', i.e. they have never seen the inside of a court. That's the same experience I've had with Swansea and Haringey when they gagged me.
I am now building her case from the documentation I have.
What's most important to remember at this point, it seems: whether good or bad press, do not believe it!!!
Sabine
Web publisher, http://vickyhaigh.wordpress.com
http://victims-unite.net
Are you arguing therefore that privilege should extend to non-parliamentary business? What is the test? Anything that takes place on the parliamentary estate? It strikes me as a recipe for abuse.
My concern is with the assertion that you had "lifted the gag". Clearly there are those who took that to mean that you had in some way altered the order, which clearly you had no power to do. I'm really not clear on what you meant by those words or what you hoped to achieve. It seemed to me at the time that this was bound to end in tears. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of someone getting banged up for nine months just because they're a bit nutty, but I can't see the Court was left with much choice.
I specifically advised Ms Watson to follow the injunction. That cannot be seen to be unclear.
what about refusig to talk to someone, especially thse who refuse to confirm or deny if they know who they are? especially when you suspect them of being a member of a terrorist organisation, like the poolice, for example? heard a rumour once that that had been made illegal....? between that and joint enterprise law i dnt think it's me that has broken any laws...
when you refuse to commit this 'crime', is it right that you should be locked up (one prison or another) for over ten years now? have your genitals mutilated? dog murdered? homeless? left entirely destitute? no access to basic things like money/ bank accounts in any form? electrodes through the brain? gang raped? tubes down the throat? that sort of thing...tortured with DEW? distinct possibilty, i have been experiencing some of the symptoms...
what would your 'advice' be if one of them (you) crept up behind you and tried to shoot you repeatedly in the head? allow them to murder you/ commit suicide? that's ILLEGAL as is instigating soembody to commit a criminal offence, last rumour i heard....but if you managed to kill your assialant in self defence with jedi reflexes or soemthing, they'll fit you up for killing a non physical entity and label you a schizo to prejudice the jury whilst being tried by kangaroo? none of us will win WITHOUT sinking to their level, that is reality/ evolution....
i'll buy you a pint if you publish that one, presumingi ever allowed access to money again!
Forgive me if I'm paraphrasing your position incorrectly, but I understood from the video of various meetings you have spoken at that your position on Parliamentary privilege is fairly clear. You seemed to be taking the position that the only situation in which you yourself enjoyed privilege was when speaking on the floor, in a parliamentary committee, or in other circumstances where you are discharging your legislative functions as an MP.
I'm no authority on the extent of parliamentary privilege, although the position above is in agreement with the sort of things you learn at university! Nevertheless, while the proposition is uncontentious, it might be useful if you could highlight authority for claiming privilege covers communications between MPs and members of the public (constituents or otherwise). This would help clarify where you believe the limits of the privilege to lie.
Which, in a rather roundabout way, brings me onto the topic of Ms Haigh. I think it is widely known that Ms Haigh wrote or ghost-wrote an anonymous article for the Indy, detailing how she was summoned to a committal hearing at the RCJ after speaking at a meeting you had invited her to. Although that article made it clear that nobody did, in fact, "set out to imprison" her. And unfortunately I can't remember whether the article stated whether or not the council sought to impose a fine for the contempt of court.
It seems odd to describe this as "what they have said to a member of parliament", when what you refer to was a public meeting which an MP attended and/or organised. Which, by your own position, you accept you yourself could have faced contempt proceedings had you spoken as Ms Haigh did in that setting.
In any event, as you say, it is impossible to form any view on the validity of the court ruling at least until the open part of the decision is published to BAILII. And, thankfully, this result seems to have worked out for the best for everyone--addressing some of your concerns about open justice, allowing Mr Tune to publicly demonstrate his vindication by the court, and hopefully allowing X (the daughter) to move past all this.
But more telling is the sewer depths to which these so-called but risible pillars of society have sunk to. Judge for yourself; no pun intended. Hard hearing and 85 years old Norman Scarth as I stated earlier got landed with a six month prison sentence for recording what was taking place in an English court, this in a country that routinely spies on its subjects, for that’s how the British establishment regards us as not citizens, and therefore has more CCTV cameras installed countrywide to observe our every movement than the rest of the world put together. Every Briton is photographed and monitored a minimum of five times daily and in our city centres, shopping malls and marginalized communities that figure is even higher. But if this were China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Zimbabwe or any other state drawn randomly that the British government doesn’t like these hypocrites would be up on their high horse pontificating about all sorts of the violations of the citizens of these states human rights, the identical human rights that David Cameron and his ilk have no genuine regard or see any real purpose for in Britain but nevertheless don’t mind liberally using as a handy stick to beat others with that for totally perverse, racist or imperialist motives they either don’t like or even despise.
Drawing a contrast between the two cases mentioned above and that of Norman Scarth, just the tip of this disturbingly sinister, judiciary iceberg that I could have recounted, it is clear to anyone with a functioning brain cell in his or her head that the judge in Norman Scarth’s unfortunate case has at best evidently either gone over the top or else has lost his marbles completely, assuming of course there were any there to start with. And if this is a measure of the objectivity or justice we can expect from our judges in the future then as a country we Britons are in a much more parlous state than even the most prescient-minded of us suspected; for what we’ve witnessed is just plain barmy!
Norman Scarth was well aware of all this just as he was of the manifold inadequacies of the police, judiciary system, magistrates and judges and vitally wasn’t afraid to stick his neck above the parapet and loudly criticize what he saw and knew to be wrong, so he had to be made an example of; in other words he had to be silenced. Previously Mr Scarth had won an EU court ruling against secret court hearings in Britain and therefore the judiciary was out to get him for his bottle in taking such action and actually winning. My question is, if justice shouldn’t only be done but ought also to be seen to be done why are a bunch of totally unrepresentative and wholly unaccountable, no one actually knows how you get your jobs although we suspect what really goes on, and drawn exclusively from a section of our society that is light years removed from the rest of us by its mindboggling elitism, arrogance, privileged existence and in many case rank stupidity, what are you so afraid of in terms of the public transparently seeing what you get up to rather than having a coterie of obsequious, disreputable and discredited hacks telling us the versions that you and they evidently want the rest of us to obediently swallow? Besides this is 2011 the age of social networking and a surfeit of alternative communications and like Norman Scarth countless millions of us globally don’t as previous generation passively did see you as our betters, since you’re public servants and that’s what we consider you to be; that means you work for us not the other way round.
Norman Scarth served Britain with distinction and bravery during the Second World War that was started by people having the same fascist mindset we see today across the British establishment. He ploughed through the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean to take supplies to the Soviet Union that was gallantly keeping the Third Reich at bay and finally defeated it on the Eastern Front enabling the brave members of our own and millions of our colonial forces: 2 million Indians comprising the largest voluntary force in the history of mankind; hundreds of thousands of black African and West Indian troops and many others besides to finish of the job and win the war against fascism and Nazism. And it’s a great insult to their memory and selfless sacrifices as well as to those still alive like Norman Scarth and my own father and uncles for an assortment of self-centred, effete nonentities with the so-called right social connections and that feel they have an invincible right to dispense their own brand of kangaroo justice over the rest of us; people who as we all know have never worn a British military uniform of any kind, seen a bullet fired in anger, or see any reason why they should as that they consider are tasks only for the likes of brave Norman Scarth, my dad or me while theirs is to take control of our lives, well let me tell you this, you can all go to hell in a handcart as far as I’m personally concerned, for I know who, despite my own priceless education, I would rather see inhabiting this country, running its affairs and doing so on merit not through incestuous privilege or a wholly contemptible and vengeful old boy’s network.
We don’t have to be told that our Con-Dem government, it leaders and the overwhelming majority of our lawmakers are rotten to the core or that preceding ones also were, but one gets the government they deserve. That said we still have the ability to change them at the ballot box and replace them if we so wish with others of our choice; that’s as it should be even if they turn out to be worse than the previous lot. This is most certainly not the case with our judiciary who as I said before are entirely unaccountable and unrepresentative in every conceptual sense of those words, and I honestly believe that it’s high time we do a complete root and branch change of the nepotistic and corrupt system that produces them and fashion one that is more in keeping with the 21st Century and the needs of a modern not a colonial, class-ridden and archaic Britain; since I also steadfastly think that much of so-called British superiority and Britain’s civilizing mission to the world that these crazed judicial Neanderthals are steeped in rest upon nothing more than delusions of grandeur.
Free Norman Scarth!
http://collymore.over-blog.com/article-the-lunacy-of-unaccountable-power-82172142.html