Friday 9 April 2010

1689 Bill of Rights

Now here is a nice piece of legislation, typical of the sort of thing done in the peoples name but never really intended like that. Parliament was keen to show its importance at a time when things were very different in terms of power, involving royalty (civil war or not), so the result was something that couldn't be achieved just because it was 'the right thing'. One aspect, that gets people going these days, is that 'no fine or forfeiture can be imposed without due process of the law'. Which means a court has to find you guilty. If a policeman issues you with a fixed penalty ticket he is flying in the face of this law (which still stands). However, because you can refuse to pay and elect to be tried in a court (or actually just appear before a magistrate) the claim is that your rights under the Bill are upheld. That the state attempts to intimidate by issuing the penalty and increasing it by 50% should you have the audacity to demand your legal entitlement gives the lie to this. Technically correct, but a clear abuse by parliamentary power.

A parking fine needless to say doesn't offer this alternative, hypocritically or otherwise so is just illegal. Full stop. A clear example of the contempt MP's have for the people and again, an abuse. The Bill of Rights could have been amended, laws always can as no parliament can tie another (except I suppose when it is a massive debt like Gordon has racked up) but it has to be expressly done. So someone would have had to point out, openly, the mischief the government of the day intended, before making the changes in a new law. Not very palatable, better to just ignore the law and hoodwink the people. It was about raising funds after all.

The reason for this need to spell it out was openly stated by a Judge who said some laws were 'constitutional' and were part of a 'hierarchy' of laws. In normal practice, when a new law impinges on the provisions of an old one, the new takes precedence, except here with constitutional laws. (He was keen to make this point as it was during the Metric Martyrs trial, when they said the 1985 Weights and Measures Act allowed the use of pounds, but the Judge said the provisions of EU law as enacted under the 1972 Act, by which we joined the EEC, could not be superseded in this way and specifically named the Bill of Rights as another).

You can find a short document in the House of Commons Library that completely ignores this and tries to have it that new laws are just that, new law. It carefully says that the Bill can be amended without pointing out that it hasn't been in important areas. To be fair that isn't the point of the document, but you can't help reading it with the feeling that it is to put you off the scent, if you were planning on looking to the Bill for support in some way.

Naturally, the government and its agents are in no hurry to have this tested in a court of law. If they have their way and deny there is a hierarchy of laws then the Metric Martyrs were wrongly convicted and the trial was politically controlled. If not, then the EU Act of 1972 can be binned.

Interestingly, the government has never had the right to hand authority to a foreign power, as has been done. There does seem to be a lot of abuse and extra-legal activity in our governments of late, does there not?

No comments:

Post a Comment