Habeas Corpus

Justice & Democracy

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"El único Estado duradero es áquel en que todos las personas son iguales ante la Ley"
Aristóteles

"I never ask a man his religion, race or country, it is enough for me to know he belongs to the worse specimen of beast"
Jonathan Swift

The United Kingdom is one of the few democracies on the planet Earth but as long as the UK keeps the MP's uninominal constituencies; though in urgent need of improvements to perfect Democracy if we want the United Kingdom to remain united and free from institutional corruption; that is :
1) Proper representation by electing each Member of Parliament by absolute majority, with a second ballot between front runners when necessary; setting thus each MP under the control of his/her constituents, not under the Party's leader.
2) Separation of the Legislative and the Executive powers, electing directly the Prime Minister by the whole UK electorate and by absolute majority to legitimate its representation, like in the USA and in France.
Democracy is not any voting regime, certainly not proportional voting or an opinion poll, is not ruling by consensus but by a qualified absolute majority
... to learn what Democracy is, please read 'A Pure Theory of Democracy' by Antonio Garcia-Trevijano

Queen warns Scots to think 'very carefully' about referendum vote.
The monarch breaks her silence on Scottish independence four days before voters go to the polls, with her comments interpreted as support for a No vote... [The Telegraph]

Queen hopes Scottish independence voters will 'think carefully about future'. Comment after Sunday morning service at Crathie Kirk, near Balmoral, interpreted as a boost to no campaign ... [The Guardian]

Queen breaks silence on referendum debate.
The race is so close it has prompted non-Scots to show their support for the Union ... [The Independent]

Queen urges people to 'think carefully about future' ... [BBC]

If a majority of Scottish voters – that is 7% of the British people- break next week the United Kingdom [because they do not feel represented by Westminster and Downing Street] it would be the most significant catastrophe of a century, not only for this kingdom, our homeland, but for Europe and mankind at large.

The increased possibility of this political earthquake has shown that the actual institutional system -parliamentary democracy- is exhausted by a serious deficit of political representation.

There is a remedy though, only one, if administer with the urgency this most significant matter requires, we must perfect Democracy: The UK Government ought to be elected by all the people of the United Kingdom, thus the 4,5 millions Scottish must also have the right to elect the Government in London. At the moment we do not have separation of powers between the Legislative and the Executive powers. That is not democratic, this deficiency is tearing the kingdom apart as did in Spain.

The few countries where their people elect the executive power do not suffer of separatist movements. Look at the USA where all people from its 50 States do feel Americans, or France where the Corsica or Basque nationalists movements did not take hold like happen instead elsewhere where tribal, sectarian or nationalist tensions are exacerbated by lack of separation of powers via a representative electoral system, like happen in Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, etc.

Coalition governments are anti-democratic because people could have the right to elect by absolute majority their favourite Government, that is via a second ballot between the two front runners candidates when none obtained over 50% of the vote in the first ballot. The actual UK coalition government accentuated the deficit of representation, as what its compromise allows is not what the Conservatives nor the Liberals voted for.

Devolution will demand more devolution to content nationalist selfishness, it would be an endless game, like has been the past 4 decades in Spain, fabricating an inefficient and extremely costly state with multiply layers of bureaucracy and institutional corruption which will inevitable sacrifice the general interest of the people and the country.

Absolute majority grants strong representation and democratic legitimacy; such should be the way to elect each Member of the Legislative power as well, if we want to unite this kingdom resolving the deficit of credibility affecting politicians and political institutions in our beloved UK. Only united the country can be strong to face the geopolitical challenges.

I hope Mr Cameron -and every politician who puts the country first- will listen and take the rightful path of perfecting Democracy, as Charles De Gaulle did for his beloved France.

As a platonic monarchist, I think that this solution of improving Democracy is the best for all British people and for the Monarchy to stand a healthy and useful institution for the country and beyond.

Thanks for your consideration.
Dr Meizoso

Farage in his explainable thirst to obtain UK Parliamentary seats, knows that with a proportional vote system -like the one which causes all the EU evils he denounces- the UKIP would get as many seats as the overall percentage of votes it gets in the current system. The problem is that mere abstract mathematics does not make a Democracy. True Democracy stands on: a) the uni-nominal constituencies (which proportional system suppresses disconnecting the society from MPs), b) strong representation by absolute majority of all elected institutions, thus with a second ballot between front runners candidates when none obtained 50% in the first ballot and c) Democracy stands in separation of powers. To separate the Legislative and Executive ones two different elections are necessary: at Constituencies level to chose your MP and at the country level to elect the Prime Minister by all the UK people. With representative Democracy no separatist movement can ever take hold because such electoral system do unite the people by putting them in control of the political institutions. It is not enough to vote to make a Democracy, it stands on a representative voting system. Parliamentary Democracy is a deficient representative system as the Scottish referendum has been clearly showing.

It is a misfortune for the world that only two countries have representative Democracy: USA and France. Swiss tries to palliate the democratic shortfalls of parliamentary democracy with a sort of direct democracy via referendums, but the weakness of direct democracy has fully been proved in Athens when sophists -like Alex Salmond and Nigel Farage- demonstrated how easy was to manipulate the popular voters and managed to sentenced to death the wisest man that Humankind ever known, Socrates. The power of sophists to present false arguments as truthful ones was shown again in 2000 when 75% of Swiss people voted against separation of powers rejecting thus to assume the responsibility of perfecting their faulty democracy. And the power of sophists to motivate people to commit political suicide may prove again next week if 4% of British people decide to break the UK. Paraphrasing the words of an immortal Poet: sophists like most politicians manipulate the terrible power of Free will (liberum arbitrium) to make voters chose Hell.

The Monarch is the symbol of the unity of the State, so logically HM The Queen does not rejoice in the UK being tear apart, due to the intellectual shortfalls of politicians. When Blair created the regional parliaments should also united the country by instituting a representative Democratic system. It is not for the Monarch, but for politicians – such as Farage and Galloway- to show the way to perfect Democracy, thus uniting the country instead of wanting any short-sight political system which might serve their immediate interests instead of serving the people of the United Kingdom.

As a platonic monarchist, I think that this solution of improving Democracy is the best one for the people and for the Monarchy to stand a healthy and useful institution for the country and beyond.

Thanks for your consideration.
Dr Meizoso

I congratulated Mr Galloway for this excellent article, but as I told him before there is a remedy to the nationalist destructive drive: to perfect our Democracy as explained above. It would be useful if good political orators as Galloway support the remedy of representative Democracy.

Widow of murdered Alexander Litvinenko wins High Court battle in fight for public inquiry

The widow of murdered former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko has hailed a High Court victory that raises her hopes of obtaining a public inquiry into her husband's death as "unbelievable".

Marina Litvinenko had challenged the UK Government's decision to await the outcome of a normal inquest before deciding whether there should be an inquiry with powers to probe more deeply into the killing.
Now three High Court judges have decided that Home Secretary Theresa May must reconsider the decision in the light of their ruling. Mrs Litvinenko's lawyers described it as “a very strong ruling”.
Speaking outside court, Mrs Litvinenko said she was “very glad” the ruling had gone in her favour.
She said: “It is just unbelievable. It shows that there was not any reason to say I did not have the right for a public inquiry.”
... more in The Guardian - BBC - The Independent - The Telegraph

Fair Trials International is a unique human rights charity. We campaign for fundamental rights for people facing the ordeal of criminal charges in a country other than their own. In addition to providing legal assistance and advocacy to individuals in need, we fight the underlying causes of injustice in cross-border cases through our policy interventions, research and training.

Misuse of the European Arrest Warrant

The Guardian, Thursday 16 December 2010
Julian Assange may ultimately succeed in his bail application, but the threat of extradition to Sweden will still hang over him (The Julian Assange case: a mockery of extradition?, 14 December). The public interest in Assange's case is understandable, but his case illustrates a wider, less publicised problem. Last year alone, Europe's fast-track extradition system was used to extradite nearly 700 people from the UK. Our work at Fair Trials International leaves us in no doubt that this system, designed to deliver justice, is in fact causing many serious cases of injustice.
A central concern in the Assange case is that Sweden seems not even to have laid charges. The European arrest warrant should, by law, be used only to prosecute or to enforce a sentence. Serious though the allegations may be, there is no basis to extradite Mr Assange, unless for the purposes of conducting a criminal prosecution. We have seen many cases of overseas prosecutors reaching for the quick-fire, tick-box EAW, rather than using other legitimate means of investigating alleged crimes. Michael Turner and Andrew Symeou are just two of those we have helped, and who experienced horrendous periods in detention after being surrendered, before even being questioned by police.
In such cases as these, less drastic tools should be used. Sweden should ask the UK to assist with its investigations, starting by questioning Assange. The EAW, used properly, is a key weapon in the fight against serious cross-border crime. It should not, however, be the measure of first resort.
Catherine Heard
Head of policy, Fair Trials International
Read also:
The European arrest warrant is being used to have thousands of people flown out to face charges that wouldn't stick in the UK
Extradition agreement under review as Theresa May launches inquiry
European arrest warrant in spotlight
Extradition treaty review will take a year:
The review, conducted by a panel of experts selected by the Home Office, will examine whether judges should be given powers to bar extradition and deal with some cases in British courts. Existing legislation allows the US and European Union countries to have British citizens arrested and sent for trial abroad without presenting the level of evidence that would be needed for a prosecution in the UK.
The panel will examine whether the Extradition Act and European Arrest Warrant are being used to unfairly pursue Britons. It follows the case of Gary McKinnon, a Scot who faces decades in a US jail for computer hacking crimes allegedly committed at his north London home. There has also been alarm at the use of European warrants to send people to countries with legal systems less robust than the UK's, and where they can face years locked up on remand.
Last night, the former home secretary David Blunkett, who signed the Extradition Act and has admitted he may have "given too much away" to the Americans, said that sensible discussions with Britain's extradition partners could resolve "any irritants quite speedily".
But he said Ms May's announcement of the scope of the review appeared "to kick these issues into the long grass" because the panel will not report until the end of next summer.
Shami Chakrabarti, of the civil rights group Liberty, also raised concerns about the time the review will take, saying: "A number of hard cases could be more urgently addressed by activating a 'forum' provision that has sat dormant on the statute book for four years."
By activating these provisions now, "judges would have the discretion to protect people who should most obviously be dealt with at home from being shunted off to Europe, the US or anywhere else", she added.

LITVINENKO JUSTICE FOUNDATION

Russian dissident and British citizen Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London with the radioactive isotope Polonium-210 in the autumn of 2006. The Foundation will campaign to secure justice for the Litvinenko family and inform the public about the Litvinenko case.

London 2012: Shakespeare's Olympic City