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Why there can be no European Constitution
A book to be published 4th July 2007, entitled,"The Briton's Quest for Freedom" contains a candid and detailed analysis of the British political system. The author, Hector McNeill takes the reader through a somewhat depressing and devastating anaysis of an abject failure of British political parties to try and detect, let alone represent, the preferences of the people of Britain. He reviews the evolution of politics and some applied economics issues between 1945 through to 2007 concluding with a somewhat stark analysis of the future prospects of political parties in their current form. From then on the reader is led out of the wilderness by, first of all, being introduced to missing constitutional components. This becomes a fascinating journey through, of all things, juries, schooling, the role of knowledge and information in the formation of individual preferences and then, finally, a constitutional principle the Minority Principle. The Minority Principle is somewhat of a surprise and is quite innovative in that it kills the winner-loser situation created by our traditional politicial decision-making based upon the majority principle. At the same time the Minority Principle masterfully avoids the issue of compromise normally associated with other "voting" systems. These essential constitutional components are applied to the British general election and legislative cycle and to the application of law. As a result the reader witnesses unfolding before his or her eyes how an election of a supreme Parliament which clearly represents the free will of the people can occur. Legislation can be based upon the full facts and is participatory and yet free from partisan bias. These constitutional proposals for Britain are exciting and, since they appear to be completely feasible, inspirational.
And Europe? the jury is still out - literally!
One would have imagined that this constitutional proposition was enough to complete the book but no stone remains unturned. At the end of the book there is a chapter entitled Sovereignty with a review of some really quite serious issues which remain unresolved. One of these is quite topical and comes into focus in an exposé of the extent to which the judiciary in at least 10 of the European Union's Member States is corrupt. They continue to work hand in glove with police, the former totalitarian political parties, now masquerading as socialists and democracts, and former members of the intelligence services. Bad habits built up over 45 years under the one-party states have not miraculously disappeared because these countries are now members of the European Union. Such judiciary fails the simplest tests of impartiality and frankly cannot be trusted. In general this is pretty well covered up but recently the situation in Bulgaria and Romania has become so obvious with unresolved corruption and gang killings that even the European Commission has been forced to complain about this. However, in terms of the inability of the European court system to defend individuals against arbitrary decisions, the other eight former totalitarian European Union member states are really not much better. Part of the problem is the lack of effective use of juries in Europe. In addition, the use of majority voting by judges often creates decisions which cannot be appealed and yet which are not beyond a reasonable doubt. McNeill concludes this section stating:
"No constitutional solution can succeed until elections, legislative cycles and the application of the law uphold the preferences of the people. The proposals made in this book, and in particular the minority principle, can help move Britain in the desired direction towards a more harmonious social comity."
"In the case of Europe however, it is somewhat astounding that in the extended discussions concerning a European Constitution, or any amending treaty, there is a failure to admit the degree to which of the judiciaries and the ECJ are compromised and with a tendency towards arbitrariness. Until this serious problem is solved, no serious discussion concerning an effective European Constitution is possible. No European Constitution can protect the freedom of the people of Britain and our social comity, let alone defend the freedom of the people of Europe or the social comity of any other European Member state. Without all European member states having the highest standards of impartiality and independence in both national legal systems and the ECJ there can be no effective European Constitution worthy of the trust of the people." |
This is a serious indictment of the failure of British politicians and governments to safeguard the individual freedom of British citizens by calling attention to these gaping holes in impartiality. After all, so what if the odd judge hands out a damaging arbitrary decision? So what if under the European Arrest Warrant a judge and some friendly police concoct evidence against an innocent British subject who is eventually found dead in their police cell? British politicians have persistently ignored this very serious crisis and have simply continued to support assorted European treaties and constitutional arrangements and the European amending treaties. They have not paid attention to the rapid deteoriation in the quality of the judiciary associated with the accessions of former totalitarian regimes during the two last, somewhat rushed, enlargements of the European Union. The likelihood of arbitrariness with 37% of EU institutional judges coming from these countries and with judges taking decisions by majority votes in small panels. This means there is a high probability of bias arising from political inlfluence in panels and therefore arbitrary decisions. Majority decisions open up the arbitrariness of permitting decisions to be taken which are associated with less than reasonable doubt for the views of dissenting minority judges are ignored. It is as if the individual freedom of Britons is not important. This unacceptable state of affairs not only affects the European Court of Justics and the European Court of the First Instance but the situation in the case of the European Court of Human Rights is even worse. How can our politicians be so blasé about all of this? This state of affairs is a matter of serious concern.
Sequel
Hector McNeill was the co-ordinator of the European Campaign for Jury Rights which has now been absorbed into the NGO E-mancipation. In early 2003 he declared the European Constitutional draft to be a failure in an interview with European Options ( "Only communities can defend their basic freedoms", European Options, March 26, 2003 ). He has also overseen over a decade of painstaking and extensive field work completed under the auspices of the ACMFO1, SEEL2 and ECRE3 concerning the failures of the European Union to act as required to ensure that accession governments were complying with European Law and, in particular, Human Rights Law. He points out that even without a European Constitution the situation is already unacceptable and further accords simply deepen the exposure of all to an arbitrary legal system. These fundamental failures in the European Union threaten individual freedom because European Law is supreme over national law in many cases. In cases of dispute decisions are taken by these corrupt juryless tribunals against whose decisions there are no provisions for effective appeal. This and other relevant matters are analysed in more detail in a forthcoming book by Hector McNeill entitled, "Freedom, the Constitutional Imperative".
1ACMFO is the Audit Commission on Multinational Finance Organizations;
2SEEL is the Systems Engineering Economics Laboratory;
3ECRE is the European Committee on Romani Emancipation.
Updated: 19th July 2007 12:00 | |