Saturday - February 19, 2011

a rare legal victory for common sense.  lets see how long it will last.

At very long and much awaited last, a shimmering glimpse of logic is sighted at the far end of the tunnel.

How long will it last and how far might it go?  Who knows. But the law abiding Brit taxpayer for the moment at least, has something to cheer about.

See for yourself and as always …
Stay Tuned. Because this is not over yet. This is just phase one.

Payback time for grasping prisoners: Inmates to pay £76 costs each as judge throws out vote-ban compensation claim

By STEVE DOUGHTY
Last updated at 1:47 AM on 19th February 2011

Almost 600 criminals trying to make money out of the voting ban on prisoners were slapped down by a High Court judge yesterday.

They had sought £5,000 each compensation for being unable to vote at the last election. Instead, Mr Justice Langstaff ordered them to PAY £76 each towards the costs of their action.

In a decision hailed as a rare legal victory for common sense, he ruled that European judgments should never be allowed to trump laws passed at Westminster.
It was a decisive blow for the authority of Parliament over the European Court of Human Rights – and the legal vultures demanding millions of pounds in compensation for prisoners.

Tens of thousands of prisoners had been expected to try to sue the Government because it has not bowed to Strasbourg and presented them with the right to vote in elections. Government lawyers had estimated an eventual bill to the taxpayer of close to £150million.
But that threat evaporated following yesterday’s ruling.

None of the 588 prisoners involved had been able to keep the services of lawyers to represent them because they were denied taxpayer-funded legal aid by the Legal Services Commission and no lawyer was willing to take on the case on a no-win no-fee basis.

Similarly, without legal aid they must pay the costs of their lost action themselves.
The risk of having to pay costs appears to have affected the willingness of prisoners to pursue their claims once they realised they would not be given legal aid.

We CAN ignore Europe over prisoner votes
By Steve Doughty

Britain could defy European human rights judges over prisoner voting with minimal risk of any penalty, ministers have been advised.
There is only an outside chance of serious punishment for any politician who decides to defy outright the judgments of Strasbourg.
Government lawyers who drew up the leaked analysis for Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said it was unlikely that Britain would be thrown out of the Council of Europe, the 47-nation European organisation that runs the European Court on Human Rights.

In theory David Cameron or any other politician who refuses to obey the rulings of the court could face the seizure of his or her home and assets by a British court.
There could also be a conviction for contempt of court, a crime that can carry a jail sentence.

In practice, the greatest loss would be to this country’s prestige as a leader in the human rights movement.

The Government legal advice shoots down the Liberal Democrats’ central objection to any British move to reject Strasbourg’s orders – that refusing to give the vote to prisoners would lead to Britain being thrown out of the Council of Europe, with punishing international consequences including doubts over continued membership of the EU.

Britain could follow one of two policies, the advice said.
If the Government explained to Strasbourg that it had tried to obey the Euro-judges’ instructions to give prisoners the vote but failed, then ‘it seems highly unlikely that the UK would face anything more than criticism at a political level’.

Such criticism is already flying in without major effect. This week European Court president Jean-Paul Costa accused Britain of being on a par with the last country to refuse to accept its authority, Greece under the dictatorship of the colonels’ junta in the 1960s.

But if David Cameron openly refuses to accept the five-year-old Strasbourg order that prisoners should have the vote, the consequences, the document said, are a matter of speculation.

He could face personal penalties if British courts hold that he had failed to meet his obligations to uphold the Strasbourg court’s authority.

READ MORE ON BOTH HERE

Posted by peiper     on 02/19/2011 at 05:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Big Brother • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • UK •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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