I’ve previously blogged about how leaving the
safety of the EU would affect the United Kingdom with regards to potential
future conflict and I know that seemed to be laughed off by those who proposed
leaving the EU when Cameron made mention of it. Last century we were warring with Europe like
crazy, now I hear people say that could never happen again. Well, war is what can so easily happen when
the talking stops between nations.
However, today I wish to write about the legal impact of leaving the EU. I’ve had a ringside seat to the legal side
of things for over thirty years and I’ve seen how the state has simply messed
things up.
Firstly, the public need legal protection from
our government not through our own courts but by the European Courts. The
Human Rights Act isn’t some liberal nonsense dreamt up by
idiots but it is the outcome of critical thought by the world’s best legal
minds. There has to be a way to prevent
a state from going wrong and from my understanding whether we remain in Europe
or leave we will still be protected by the European Court of Human Rights (“ECHR”)
as one of the founding signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights
in 1951. We will, however, no longer be
protected by the Court of
Justice of the European Union (“CJEU’), which is
responsible for ensuring that European law is interpreted and applied in the
same way in every member state and is currently the highest court of appeal in
the UK on EU matters and whose judgments we are obliged to follow.
The CJEU has the task of supervising the
uniform application of EU law throughout the member states and in so doing it
can create case law. It is important
not to confuse it with the ECHR, which is completely separate and not an
institution of the EU. The majority of cases heard by the CJEU are brought by
member states and institutions of the Community, or are referred to it by
national courts. It has only limited
power to deal with cases brought by individual citizens, and such cases are
rarely heard.
Luckily for the UK, the print media is in
competition from the Internet, so public opinion cannot be twisted and moulded
by what the Daily Mail says. It’s all
too cosy when an MP like Whittingdale avoids
media ridicule, with a coincidence that he allowed the press to self
regulate. Who knows if the two are
linked by the legal system, the penal system? Parliament and the press can get
quite cosy together if allowed to, but if a person is a victim of that
relationship then as a last resort there is the European Court.
A new
thing by the state is that prisons are going to be able self-determine certain
aspects of what they do, but I believe you have to have one prison
system ruled by centralised governance maintaining a rule book of prison
service orders and prison
service instructions. That way the staff know exactly what’s what
and so do all the prisoners.
The staff who look after a country’s law
breakers appear to have been overlooked by those who want to leave Europe. They are for the most part good people who
rarely get the recognition they deserve.
The dynamic within prison between officers and prisoners is complex,
when it goes wrong like the Strangeways riot, prison
officers have to sort that out. Having both
the European Courts in place protects the rights of the imprisoned and protects
prison officers from unrest in prison.
Access to legal resolution of problems in prison has stopped many
potential riots. Our government is
motivated by revenge justice with little or no sympathy for the imprisoned and
it is the impartial Courts in Europe that stop the worst excesses of how
Parliament views those imprisoned and those who look after the imprisoned.
It is concerning that voting to leave Europe
on the 23rd June would eventually see the protection offered to us
by the European Court of Justice redacted. Cameron states that we must remain
within the European Union and I agree that we should. However it is of great
concern that Cameron still maintains his intentions to scrap the Human rightsAct and create the “British Bill of Rights” in its place. Whatever decision is made
as a result of the referendum we cannot allow Cameron to go ahead with these
ridiculous and dangerous proposals. I have
written previously about how important it is for us as a Nation and as
individual citizens to have the protection of the Human Rights Act. This Act
should be left as it is with the assurances we will remain within the
jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.
Jeremy
