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Justice |
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the Time for Tears ......
NOT when the victim is murdered .....
but when the murderer only gets a Micky-Mouse sentence. That's the time to weep with rage and despair.... Not my words: the words of the greatest living Poet/Songwriter, Bob Dylan, in "the Lonesome death of Hattie Carroll" |
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It used to be said that "Quick Justice is Bad justice". In Britain we've got the opposite: a Justice so slow, that important cases don't come to trial till a year (sometimes two years) after the defendant is charged. During all this time, they are brought back to court, week after week, for further remands. Meanwhile, the media are not allowed to talk about the case. How can we expect witnesses - especially children - to remember and describe, something that happened YEARS ago ? This is a recipe for INjustice.
Worse: Increasingly, defendants who are found "Guilty" and get a short prison-sentence, say a year or two - walk free from the dock: because they've already spent that long, waiting in custody for the trial to begin! |
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What's the reason for the massive delays? One is the preparation of so-called "Reports" on the defendant - so the magistrate or judge, can see "what makes this person tick."
Why do they need to know that? A trial has just two purposes: 1 - to see if they are guilty or innocent. 2 - If guilty, to decide the sentence. The first is just a question of facts. The sentence should be from a fixed scale, set by Parliament. There's no reason for the judge to see or know, any of the "personality" stuff. Other major delays are caused by the "fixing" of the trial. For weeks beforehand, the defence and prosecution lawyers meet (in secret) and decide the course of the trial. The defence have to tell the prosecutors, exactly what they're going to say. (The Prosecution don't have to tell the Defence though - just one of the many ways, that we tip the scales of Justice against the victim). |
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We'd bin all this pre-trial nonsense, in a major reform of the legal and court system. This would give us a trial much sooner; the trial would be much shorter; and last (but not least - 'cos it's me and you, taxpayers, who are paying) - it would be a lot cheaper. There should be a guarantee of a trial, at the latest, 10 weeks after the defendant is charged. There is no technical reason why this can't happen. Then the defendant who turns out to be innocent, has spent at most ten weeks on remand. And those who really are guilty, serve ALL their time in prison, not in remand-centres. such as Blair's wife and many of his cronies" The longer the legal process drags on, with endless court-appearances - then of course it's all the more work for Britain's huge army of lawyers. The crime-wave has made Britain "Lawyer Heaven". So it's in the interests of the legal profession (which includes of course Tony Blair's wife Cherie, and many of their cronies), for things to carry on the same. The Crown Prosection Service (CPS), was set up by Tory Leon Brittan - the worst Home Secretary this country has ever had. It exists to promote crime, by stopping the police from taking serious offences to court. What kind of country are we, where the relatives of murder-victims (such as Stephen Lawrence), have to bring their own private prosections ? It should be up to a jury to decide if someone is guilty or not ! But instead of scrapping the CPS, New Labour supports this piece of Tory baggage. Bin it. You get called up for Jury service and you're not too happy about it. You know the expenses aren't enough to cover missing work for a few weeks. How can you get out of being selected ? Easy. Just go along in your best suit; carrying a Times or Guardian newspaper. The Defence lawyer is guaranteed to reject you - because you look like someone who might think for themselves. Defence lawyers want only jurors who can be told what to think. This maximises their chances of manipulating the jury, to get their client off. In recent years since this started happening, the quality of juries has gone down and down. They've got (no offence meant) stupider. Didn't one of the 12 Soham jurors think Ian Huntly was INNOCENT ? To reform this system we need first to remove the Defence's right to object to jurors. It should be 12 people chosen at random. Then you need to make sure there will never be a financial reason for someone trying to get out of jury service. This means paying the jurors' allowance to the full amount that they say they earn - you have to trust them. (If the lie on the form, they would be jailed). In a recent murder trial in North Wales, the distinguished judge said there should be an "equal balance between the victim and the defendant". Wrong! They shouldn't be equal - the system should favour the victim MORE than the defendant. "New Labour" promised more Open-ness in society: They've done the exact opposite, and carried on where the Tories left off, in spreading an ever-growing cloak of secrecy; especially around the Legal system. More and more when a trial opens, we don't know who's being tried! The defendant, they say "Cannot be named for legal reasons". Then the legal reasons are wrong and need fixing - simple as that! We must always know the identity of people on trial. And more and more, even if we know WHO they are, we don't know what they look like - they sneak into the courtroom with a blanket over their head. But All citizens have the right to SEE the defendant, just as if they were in the public gallery. This is the real problem: Labour, in it's attempts to make Justice more secretive, has made the courtroom spaces for the public smaller and smaller; giving their places to their media-cronies and journalists (Who now are a very privileged few, being able to see and hear stuff which is forbidden for most of us.) Why is it so important to be able to see the defendant? Not just to give us the same rights as if we were in the court public gallery. Very often, defendants have committed other crimes, and previous victims, when they see them in the dock, remember "He did that to me as well..." We can get better justice, for more victims. We would give ALL defendants "Full metal jacket" identification, from Day One of every criminal trial. This means their picture (a quality photo, or video clip); and their full name, and date-of-birth (but NOT their full address, as people can easily change their address), is published on a government website, say www.defendants.org.uk; together with details of the offences they're charged with. The details would be removed at the end of the trial, if the defendant was found innocent. More secrecy: When they show us CCTV pictures on telly, of people offending or mis-behaving, they "fuzz out" the faces; so we can't actually see WHO the people are! Then what's the point of showing the pictures: This is stupid! We'd OUTLAW the use of technology to "fuzz out faces" in this way. Families First would bring in a "Freedom of Information" bill, to make justice more open as described above. This bill would also lift off many of the other secrecies which New Labour has brought in. These include: Voters being able to "opt out" of having their name on the Electoral Register; Being able to hide your "caller-id" when phoning somebody. The "141" prefix is nothing but a pervert's charter. We would outlaw this from operating. "Out-of-Court" Settlement is getting more common. It's bad- because it makes Justice harder to obtain. Individuals, and companies, who are really innocent and have done nothing wrong, "Settle" (i.e. they pay the accuser); because it's less hassle than continuing with the court proceedings. We would outlaw this; forcing all cases to come to a conclusion, one way or the other. That way we find out - who's innocent; and who's guilty. We'd also ban the stupid "No Win No Pay" for legal fees. This bad idea has come from America, and lead to the "Compensation Culture", which is clogging the courts with claims for totally trivial things. The money comes eventually from putting up all our insurance premiums. We would only allow compensation when a named individual or company, has harmed the claimant, and been convicted of doing so. The money would have to be paid by the defendant themselves, and not by their Insurance company. Another triumph for justice by our Industrial Tribunal "courts"! Companies are told by the government that they bear responsibility for their employees' misuse of E-Mail and the Internet. A lesbian, Helen Brearly, was found to be sending obscene E-Mails to a colleague at her Nottingham employment. The company rightly sacked her. But of course the Industrial Tribunal said they were wrong - and have given her £26,000 compensation. Businesses can never win. The law tells them to one thing - when they do it, the Industrial Tribunals condemn and punish them. There is growing concern about the way these high-handed Kangaroo Courts work. They assume "Guilty unless proved innocent" - the opposite of what justice is meant to be. Families First would scrap Industrial Tribunals. Industrial Tribunals FAQs Q. You want to abolish Industrial Tribunals. How will employees be able to get redress, if their employers abuse or discriminate against them? A. They'll be able to use the same method as everyone else: if their employer is breaking the law of the land, they would be taken to court, and the case heard before a magistrate, or judge and jury - just like any other court case. (But with "Innocent until proved Guilty" - unlike Industrial Tribunals). As we all know, the USA executes hundreds of prisoners every year; second only to China (far worse with several thousand "legal" murders). We probably think "thank God we're past that in Britain". Wrong! We still have the Death Penalty for a few offences - Treason is one. It's the 21st century. Let's Ditch the Death Penalty. Interestingly, if Legal Killing had been abolished pre-Hanratty, say in 1960, Hanratty would have got Life instead. But he would have certainly, say in the 1970s, made a successful appeal and been let out of prison. In that case, it is unlikely that he would have been given the DNA tests, which is what (taken on his exhumed corpse) finally nailed him as "Guilty", once and for all. Truth finally triumphed! (Although that didn't make it right to have executed this murderer). |
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FAMILIES FIRST Key Policies on Justice:
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