Home page Sedition and the sedulous pursuit of truth Sedition is agitation directed against the authority of a State's executive such as the conduct of speech tending to rebellion or breach of public order. In times such as these it is not uncommon for those who seek to expose the truth to be accused indirectly or directly of sedition. And yet in those countries who profess a value system founded upon basic freedoms the potential taint of sedition hovers like a viper to be launched by nervous politicians and the military who consider anyone who questions their acts to be traitors worthy of censorship. The role of public office, in theory, is to base decisions on facts. Facts possess a quality, a level of accuracy and precision, where these attain an acceptable quality then they become expressed as truth. It is a preferable state when politicians, those conducting war and all people, seek the truth in a diligent, perservering painstaking or sedulous way. Making available and commenting upon a true state of affairs is not sedition. Even when the public, shocked at the unravelling of some awful truth known but hidden from them by a State, wish to remove such a government, this is not sedition. This is why the state and officials of law, such as judges, cannot have absolute power but need to be subject to controls. In the legal process applying law to individuals, the independence of a jury is of of fundamental importance. The precedent for an independent jury In England, during the seventeenth Century, Quakers had initiated a widespread questioning of orthodox state religion beliefs pointing to more direct, simpler and practical interpretations of human behaviour as being the essense of the teaching of Jesus. An issue which upset clerics was their ability to base their arguments on self-evident facts about human nature; the arguments were difficult to refute. The Quakers, seeing no need for clerics as part of their religion, did not hold the clerics of the Church of England in any particular esteem. The Church, and therefore the State, saw this as sedition**. In 1670, four jurors acquitted William Penn, a leading Quaker, for promoting the understanding of the Quaker view on Christianity. The King, infuriated by the decision, had the four jurors concerned put in prison. They were refused food, were tortured, had urine thrown on them and smeared with faeces. One juror, Edward Bushell, a wealthy businessman, said that his liberty was not for sale. On appeal another English court set the jurors free. Had Bushell and his fellow jurors not acted in this way it is likely that William Penn would have been executed. Significance of the precedents established by this trial The outcome of this single case set several precedents. An important precendent was that juries cannot be considered to bring a wrong verdict. The not guilty verdict destroyed the Act making the Church of England the only legal religion and thereby gave an impulse to increased religious freedom in England. It re-established freedom of speech and the right to peaceful assembly and use of habeas corpus. The first writ ever of habeas corpus was issued by the Court of Common Pleas to free Edward Bushell. Penn, who later established the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania introduced trial by jury to that colony's legal system. America extends the principle Several years later, the adoption of trial by jury as part of the US Constitution resulted in many jurors not enforcing the acts of Parliament but would instead protect the rights of individuals. A famous example was the case of John Peter Zenger a publisher of a newspaper which published criticisms of a colonial governor. He was accused of seditious libel. Zenger was put in jail and his bail set too high for this friends to be able to afford to release him. The trial was delayed for some 9 months. At his trial Zenger told the truth, admitting he knew that his critical articles broke the law but he considered the law itself reflected the corruption of the government so he was obliged to speak out against it. The judge instructed the jury to pass a verdict of guilty. The jury ignored the judge because what Zenger stated in his articles was factual and therefore not libelous and they considered the sedition law restricted free speech and therefore threatened all freedoms. The nullification of poor laws An essential demonstration by that jury was that juries had the power to nullify poor laws through not guilty verdicts. It also emphasised the fundamental right to publish truth as opposed to misprepresentations of the facts. Juries have an important role in preventing governmental oppression by remaining independent and, on the basis of their conscience, being moved to refuse to commit themselves to supporting unjust convictions. Decentralization and statutory provisions In recent years legal process has tried to lower its costs and speed up procedures. A large amount of legal process surrounding many aspects of life have been made administrative processes within local governments (statutory provisions) where there is no longer involvement of judges or juries. Many in central government consider statutory provisions, managed by local governments, is a measure of 'decentralization' and 'democracy'. However, the removal of such provisions from effective legal oversight means that they can be easily abused by unscrupulous decision makers within the local government arenas. In the past the ability of juries to nullify poor laws was considered to be a built in provision for protecting the minority from a system operated by the majority. Central government washing hands of responsibility for protection of Human rights It is a matter of increasing concern that with the spread of statutory provisions, human rights abuse, for example in the case of planning laws in England, has increased. The role of a jury, the conscience of the community, to protect people from unfair laws and abusive prosecutorial processes is of fundamental importance in protecting liberty, freedom and happiness. Unfortunately, as things stand, statutory provisions managed by local authorities, seem to be increasingly associated with an alarming number of cases of minority group abuse. This abuse includes the confiscation of land and property belonging to Romani (Gypsies) in England without recourse to courts and, more importantly, with no input by a jury. The modernization of legal systems is reducing costs, decentralizing decision-making and lightening the load of courts but it seems to be leading to increasing victimization and human rights abuse. The Catch-22 is that the ultimate appeal on Human Rights issues is the European Court of Human Rights which reviews the implementation of the European Human Rights Convention. The British government, like other European governments, altered these provisions for the United Kingdom to state that where decision makers follow statutory provisions there can be no abuse of human rights because the 'law is being followed'. As a result, even the application of the European Convention on Human Rights in the United Kingdom, in the absense of juries to oversee the behaviour of the legal issues, now handled by statutory provisions, has become oppressive and affords little protection to minorities. Of even more concern is the fact that the European Court of Human Rights also fails to provide a jury oversight with judgements being based upon majority voting of judges. Many of these judges do not come from the European Union but come from countries with even worse human rights records than the United Kingdom. As a result, those affected by statutory provisions in the United Kingdom, and who, indeed, have suffered from abuse of their rights, can find no protection under the European Court of Human Rights. Reinstate juries as fundamental human right There is much to complain about the degree to which European Human Rights legislation fails to protect people against abuse. The removal of community oversight and the return of much decision making to the 'legal state' and elected and unelected local officials has been an erosion of liberty and freedoms. It is essential that members of society be given back the necessary powers of oversight. It is essential to protect the rights of all individuals by judging such rights through the use of fair trials based upon juries. Jurors also must have the right, according to his or her conscience, to nullify a bad, inappropriate or harmful application of the law. Juries need to be established, or reinstated, at both national and European levels, to reverse the encroachment of the state. Trial by jury is a fundamental right. ** Specifically William Penn was on trial for having violated the Conventicle Act which made the Church of England the only legal church.