Labour Spin on Law
November 29, 2004 by Ken
Filed under The Best of the Rest
The Headline in the Telegraph “Pledge to decriminalise environment offences†caught my eye, I thought, if our Tone is going to start decriminalising offences, would not that cause some problems with the EU, which has competence on environmental matters.
One naturally assumes that to decriminalise is to make something that is a criminal offence, not a criminal offence, and therefore a legal pursuit, as opposed to say hunting which is a legal pursuit but in February will become a criminal offence.
But on reading the article it becomes clear that Tone is not going to make environmental offences legal at all, no what he has in mind is far more seditious than that. Under the proposals, which are likely to be controversial, (to put it mildly) the Environment Agency would be able to apply civil penalties or fines for routine pollution offences according to a tariff based on the turnover of a company or a fixed sum for an individual.
The agency would have total discretion as to the level of fine that was levied and the offender would not have to go to court. (Not have to go to court, or would not be allowed to?)
Experts say the right of appeal to a court would be needed under such a system, but, controversially, ministers do not appear to be proposing one at this stage.
It would seem the proposal is, that the odious necessity of the environmental agency to have to actually prove in court that an offence has been committed, with all the delays and cost that system of justice at present incurs, before the court could find the offender guilty of the crime and then issue the just punishment for the offence, is to be removed, the offence will have no longer have to be proved and will have deemed to be committed on the word of the environment officer, who would also have the total discretion as to the level of punishment. It would also seem that government ministers do not see the need for any rights of appeal against the decision of the Environment officer.
The civil penalties could be used to enforce some of the new burdens that companies face, such as meeting recycling quotas. They could also apply in cases regarded as routine, such as when chemical firms exceed pollution limits by small amounts.
At present, environmental offences fall under the criminal law, which can mean long delays and high costs for local groups taking waste tip operators, for instance, to court.
Yes at present we have a quaint old system, sort of based on an old concept of freedom and justice that someone is innocent until proven guilty by a jury of their peers. It is really unfortunate that this system is a little inconvenient to a totalitarian state because it does allow someone accused of a crime to actually have the fact that they have committed a crime proven, before they are punished for it.
It is something called Common Law as opposed to Civil Law or Code Napoleon; the difference is that under common Law every man is innocent until he has been proved to be guilty. Civil Law holds that every man is guilty until he has proved himself innocent. But in this instance government ministers do not see the need to bother themselves with allowing the accused to have any rights at all.
Of course the fact that we have been told that being a member of the EU would in no way conflict with English Law and that English Common Law was safe from encroachment by the EU code Napoleon is obviously just another lie to add the already mounting pile of untruths, membership of this Union has wrought from the mouths of our magnificent leaders.
The fact that the proposal itself is a denial of our basic constitution is apparently not an important consideration to the government, we should remind them once again that we have something called the Bill of Rights 1689, which although now over 300 years old has so far, that is until recently, protected the British people from an overbearing government, the fact that this act is still remains on the statute books and has never been repealed, and is therefore still in force and will remain so in the absence of any specific subsequent Act, directly and specifically repealing it, and because the Bill is constitutional Act there is no principle of implied repeal.
The authority of the Bill of Rights was re-affirmed in a House of Lords judgement in November 2001. Desuetude (repeal by lack of use) is unknown to English law.
On 21 July 1993, the Speaker of The House of Commons issued a reminder to the courts. Betty Boothroyd said: ‘There has of course been no amendment to the Bill of Rights…the house is entitled to expect that the Bill of Rights will be fully respected by all those appearing before the courts.’ The Bill of Rights is based on a concept of permanence and declares that any actions taken against its principles are null and void. It specifically forbids handing power to foreigners. On this basis, given that no one will have been convicted for any offence, any demand for payment of a penalty is, as set out by the Bill, would be “illegal and void”.
