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The presumption of guilt - Part 2
In practice the ascension of European courts over British courts will replace the assumption of innocence by the assumption of guilt. How can this be when the Convention of Human Rights maintains an assumption of innocence?
There is little correspondence between what is written and what happens in practice. It is indeed written that there is an assumption of innocence but this does not mean that the innocent are protected. To protect the innocent there is a need for a full separation of political parties from the police, the judiciary and intelligence agencies. In Britain, the last bastion for defending the innocent against unjust decisions is the jury. Broadly speaking, in the United Kingdom, there is a respectable distance held between the police, political parties and the judiciary.
The Human Rights Court is staffed by judges from a large number of non European Union countries and most of these judges are political appointees of governments with terrible human rights records. Having been moulded in the European codified law principles there is no role for the community conscience in the form of a jury. The refusal rate of the Human Rights Court is unacceptably high and judges are not required to reach a unanimous decision but just vote. Dissenting opinions are set out by some EU judges on these panels, but then so what? The majority, seldom from the EU, have the majority. As a direct result of this bent system the voting record of the Human Rights Court for plaintifs who are from minority groups with little or no political weight or representation is abysmal.
Of the 10 countries who joined the European Union last time round and the two who have just joined, were ex-communist or had regimes which were strongly centralised and undemocratic. In most circumstances the police and judges remain far too close to the political parties, whose leaders appoint the police chiefs and judges. Party members often maintain quite illicit functional linkages with the intelligence services. Therefore the fabrication of evidence against inocent people who happen to have different political opinions to those in power is just too easy.
Of the 29 countries in the European Union, some 13 have extremely dubious judicial systems and underpaid and corrupt police forces, yet the British government has agreed to the so-called European Arrest Warrant which is just waiting for someone to be extradited on the basis of fabricated evidence and then found dead in their cell in the country to where they were sent.
This corrupt clutch of judiciaries and police represent an unsafe territory where no community conscience in the form of a jury can defend the innocent. The European Commission during the pre-accession period for the previous 10 EU members did not enforce the so-called Madrid conditions which required that the governments and the judiciaries of these countries be seen to be observing European Law at the time of accession. As a result many of these governments continue to discriminate against their own minorities in a cruel fashion. And yet the British population, including minorities, are expected to accept the absurd assumption that somehow, under the terms of the European Arrest Warrant, their interests will be protected.
The same fudge occurred with Romania and Bulgaria with the European Commission failing to call attention to this unacceptably corrupt aspect of recently acceded states.
Defending the freedom of the people of Britain should not be subjected to such a risky state of affairs and the question of independence of European judges and police management should be raised as a specific reason why Britain should withdraw from this agreement (European Arrest Warrant). Similarly the desire of the European Commission to extent the powers of Interpol which will integrate the same murky and corrupt systems is something which needs to be resisted.
It should be obvious that trying to explain to the British that their rights are protected because they can appeal to the European Court (as distinct from the European Court of Human Rights) means nothing because now a significant percentage of the judges sustain mind sets and practices which in the past saw people off the the Gulag. Such judges meet no minimum standards of impartiality and there is no jury representing the community conscience to oversee the deliberations of the court.
Justice for the people of Britain can only be provided by transparent procedures characterised by impartial judges and above all a role for the community conscience. Europe's justice system, because of the too-rapid expansion and failure to address the issue of judicial impartiality, is facing a serious decadence in standards as to be unsafe. British governments should not be permitted to put at risk the individual freedom of Britons. There should be a plan of withdrawal of Britain from European Laws related to criminal matters as well as many of the civil areas where punishments can involve loss of liberty, vocation, home and assets.
The failure of the European Commission to resolve this issue means that the respective governments now have equal status to other EU parties so change will now be slow at best and in fact with the flow of EU funds to such governments, the situation could get worse. This is because the loose talk of EU funds for "government initiatives" in fact refers to donations to budget to which political parties have an almost direct access either through ministries or through recycling government and EU project contract funds. What this has helped achieve is more money for funding what political parties want to achieve and the danger in the context of this article is that there are more funds to corrupt judges, police and intelligence services so that parties can obtain what they desire. It will difficult to ever control this corruption and for this reason the people of Britain need to hold the British government to account as to why the individual freedom of the people can be compromised so irresponsibly by causing their interests to be handed over to the European Court, an institution whose impartiality is increasingly under question and with basic standards which cause the assumption of innocence to have no meaning.
27th January, 2007
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