WHO SAID SATIRE WAS DEAD? The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has once more grabbed the headlines in Britain for all the wrong reasons. Ten backbench Tory MPs commissioned a legal researcher, Robert Broadhurst, to look into this mock-up of a real court to find out how many of its rulings had gone against Britain since we subscribed to its jurisdiction in 1966.
Out of 350 such rulings, 271 went against us, while 86 were successful, among whom were rapists, murders and terrorists. The ECHR has 47 judges and, according to James Slack writing in the Daily Mail, 20 of these so-called judges lack judicial experience; and the Mail also reminds us of some of the cases that this farcical institution has found in favour of. I for one can remember the case of the Soviet spy George Blake who got 42 years in Wormwood Scrubs, and who later escaped to the Soviet Union to publish his memoir which we tried to prevent him making money from. The ECHR awarded Blake £4,700, because we breached his right to free expression.
Today’s Mail lists other calamitous rulings that will no doubt remind its readers of the votes for prisoners debacle. Robert Broadhurst’s findings will sadden more than shock those of us who want to see the repatriation of our democratic right to make our own laws without outside interference – perhaps we should take our case to the ECHR?
Given their ability to make stupid and outrageous verdicts ; it would not surprise me if they found in our favour and disappeared up their own arses.
ALMOST BY THE WEEK, the European Union and its many institutions (including of course the ECHR) are testing the credulity of the people of Europe. The institutions are either corrupt or incompetently run by a political has been, who has been placed where they are as part of the gravy train. I can remember when Neil Kinnock embarrassingly lost us the 1992 general election (the Sheffield conference) and was replaced by Tony Blair. Kinnock was rewarded for his incompetence with a commissioners portfolio by Blair. There was nothing unusual about such an appointment, it is the commonplace way in Europe to reward such political retirees with a generous stipend. Just as our own MPs are shoved off to the Lords once they have finished messing around with the country. Kinnock had the best of both worlds. For when he finished his extravagantly rewarded position as commissioner; he too took to the red benches in a supremely hypocritical act.
It was like an atheist becoming a cardinal. Still needs must; after all he could hardly have been expected to take a job at a coal face in South Wales; especially as that horrid woman Thatcher had closed them all down.
THE ECHR should not however stand alone in face of popular criticism. For it was our politicians who, in almost Mephistophelean fashion, signed away this country’s ability to make unchallengeable laws on behalf of the people of this island. At least Faust made a trade. Our politicians, on the other hand, did so through their flawed European idealism pure and simple.
Now our elected representatives have almost been castrated by allowing, what is after all, their primary function to be overruled by the ECHR.
If, for whatever reason, our elected representatives cannot fulfil their primary function as lawmakers, then why are taxpayers not up in arms? Why are the people still paying those swathed across the green benches to cheat their expenses and live off subsidised food and drink at Westminster? For what other reason are they there; but to act as lawmakers? But if those laws are to be subjected to the consent of any foreign power before they are granted their passage into law; then why should the people bother to elect anyone into such a spineless parliament?
We need rid of the ECHR in our lives. It is a vacuous entity built upon idealism. Like every other EU institution it seeks to absorb the nation state into its collective and mould it to its will.
Our courts and our judiciary should only reflect the laws passed by their own parliament. They should not be forced to disavow them by having to obey judgements from the ECHR, of whom 20 of its ‘judges lack judicial experience’.
It is an insult to our judiciary that they should have to accommodate such a voice when making their judgements. Our politicians have placed the judiciary in such a position, and, if they value their independence, should readily vanquish their obedience to Europe and the ECHR.
As things stand at the moment, both our own judiciary and our politicians are enslaved to the European courts; which renders our judiciary mere functionaries, and our politicians as almost worthless.
THE LAW IS THE cornerstone of any country. By its various forms of implementation the people must live. In a democracy, the various parties explain to the people the laws they wish to pass if and when they are elected by the people that they are supposed to represent above all other considerations – which includes other nations and continents.
When the leaders of the various political parties lay claim to the power that only a democracy can give them, they must not betray the people they lead, by salami slicing away, bit by bit, the people’s independence within the nation state.
Sadly, this is what appears to have happened regarding our politicians within the UK. First of all we had the Maastricht Treaty followed by the Lisbon Treaty. Each of which represented a rather thick slice of salami leading to full integration to the European ‘Borg’ collective; and the evisceration of nationhood.
Parliament is our nation’s spine. From its chamber’s flow the laws that govern the land; and should be regarded as the ultimate body enhancing our freedom or placing restrictions on it, where the consensus agrees through elections.
But, today our politicians from all the major parties, have been mesmerized by this entity of Europeanization. They either signed up to or have supported such a signing to the ECHR, and in doing so, have pulled the rug from under the feet of democracy, and the people who, above all others, the very word democracy is supposed to apply.
The ECHR is a mine planted on the hull of the nation state as the precursor to political and monetary union. It seeks to gain predominance over national law in all member countries. But, like the euro, it is somewhat premature. Its appearance has been thrust upon the continent by over enthusiastic idealists who may now today be regretting their fervour - if not they certainly should.
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