 |
|
THE HANDSTAND |
DECEMBER 2003 |
WITNESS THE PROPAGANDA SURGE AS ENGLISH CONSERVATIVES GATHER BEHIND HOWARD,LETWIN AND SACCHI : LEGAL REFORMS 'RISK the RISE of "a BRITISH HITLER" By Steve Doughty©Daily Mail, UK England's most senior judges yesterday warned that Tony Blair's legal reforms were opening the way for a British Hitler. They accused him of wrecking the unwritten constitution that has for centuries protected rights and liberties. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, said the reforms posed the biggest threat to judges independence in 400 years. His Deputy, Lord Justice Judge, said Mr Blair was dismantling the constitutional barriers that have shielded Britain from horrors such as Nazi tyrrany. 'We have to remember that Hitler came to power in a democratic country by getting a significant vote and then subverting the constitution, ' he said. "There are nasty people out there and there is no guarantee that because we are Great Britain none of them will ever come to power.  The criticism came as the judiciary published a damning reply to the sweeping reforms launched by the Prime Minister in his June reshuffle, when he abolished the post of Lord Chancellor. The Judges made it clear that they believe the abolition of the 800-year-old post was botched and wrong. They demanded what Lord Woolf called 'an entirely new constitutional settlement'. An assessment of the reforms put out in the name of the Judges Council -- the representative body of judges and magistrates - said:' It has to be recognised that the manner in which the reforms were announced, without any consultation, has damged the confidence of the judiciary.' In a contemptuous dismissal of Mr Blairs grip on the meaning of his own actions(!!JB,editor), they added: 'The concern of the judiciary is heightened by the failure of the government sufficiently to appreciate the full significance of the changes that the reforms involve.' Lord Woolf, the most senior judge in England and Wales, learned of the decision to abolish the post of Lord Chancellor when he heard it on TV. He has delayed his retirement to fight the proposals. The reforms appeared not to have been fully fully thought through at the time of the reshuffle. Lord Irvines replacement, Mr Blairs former flatmate Lord Falconer, has had to act as Lord Chancellor despite the supposed abolition of the post. Details of the reforms did not surface until a month after the reshuffle. These involve: 1.The setting up of a commission to appoint juges in place of the Lord Chancellor. 2. A Supreme Court to replace the House of Lords as the highest court. 3. The abolition of the senior barristers' cherished rank of Queens Counsel. The Lord Chief Justice said the removal of the Lord Chancellor, who is head of the judiciary and a member of the Cabinet, left the courts exposed to Political interference. The replacement for the Lord Chancellor, the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, will be a politician who cannot be accepted to lead the judges, he said. Lord Woolf said the scale of the threat to the judiciary had no modern parallel. 'I think you have to go a long way back in this jurisdiction,' he said. "There were certainly threats in the 17th century -- a lot of judges lost their heads.' This compares Mr Blair's reforms with an age in which Oliver Cromwell railroaded judges to try Charles I. The body of the judge who sentenced the King to death was dug up, hanged, beheaded and dumped in a limepit when his son Charles II was restored to the throne. Lord Justice Judge used the example of the French far-right politician, Jean -Marie Le Pen, when warning of the dangers of a British Hitler. 'You cannot run through the future and say this is Great Britain, everthing is perfect her, things like this do not happen here,'he said. 'We do have to remember the popularity of the second person in the recent presidential election in France.' Forwarded by Terry Pendrous President Bush visits London: |
|