Author Archives: markdowe1

Britain, Defence, Government, Legal, Military

The Iraq Historic Allegations Team and exploitative abuse

IHAT

ihat

Around 1,500 cases of mistreatment are being investigated by the publicly-funded Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT)

Intro: IHAT’s investigations has not led to a shred of evidence of systematic abuse

RECENT media and press coverage has laid bare the iniquitous practice of British soldiers being persecuted by their own country for doing their job. That is also the uncomfortable conclusion being drawn by critics of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT). Revelations stemming over a range of apparent abuses and mistakes made has led to a sense of betrayal that has markedly worsened.

Legal activism is being fuelled by a litany of inquiries. These should be ended by the Government who must be assumed to have a duty of care to those soldiers who have served the nation. Frivolous and vexatious claims being pursued by ambulance chasing lawyers to the point of it becoming so routine, often at huge expense to the legal aid bill, should stop.

The scale of payments made by IHAT to Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), a legal firm that lodged more than 2,400 criminal complaints against British troops, has been staggering. PIL shut down over the summer after its legal aid was withdrawn, and in the last few days the firm’s founder, Phil Shiner, conceded to a legal disciplinary hearing that he ‘must be’ struck off after he admitted acting ‘recklessly and without integrity’.

Among IHAT’s expenses, drawing on funds supplied by the Ministry of Defence, some £1.4 million was paid in travel and hotel costs for Iraqi civilians, PIL staff and IHAT investigators travelling to Turkey and Lebanon. A sole Iraqi agent, who worked as a tout for PIL, received more than £110,000 for three years’ work – as well as receiving separate money to cover hotel and travel costs in and out of Iraq. And PIL’s paralegals were paid up to £75 per hour to sit with Iraqi civilians during interviews. A dozen payments, totally nearly £210,000, were even made to the disgraced legal firm after the MoD had reported the organisation to the legal watchdog.

We must look at how this strange situation has arisen. IHAT was set up ostensibly to avoid the British Armed Forces being investigated by the International Criminal Court. PIL sought redress on a mountain of cases, and, it is presumed, payments from IHAT to PIL were made for the alleged abuses to be investigated as fully as possible.

What other police operation in the world behaves in such a way, one in which the alleged victims of abuse and their lawyers are paid to give evidence? IHAT’s independence clearly looks to have been compromised.

While it is surely right that the Government should end many of these insatiable inquiries that has led to legal activism, it must also be right that where individual soldiers have committed crimes that any charges are investigated and the guilty are brought to justice.

IHAT’s investigations has not led to a shred of evidence of systematic abuse. That has not been the case. The abuse being raised by its growing number of critics is the team’s largesse and its deliberate and provocative hounding of veterans.

 

Appendage:

Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT)

. What is it?

The Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) was set up by the Labour government in 2010 to examine allegations of abuse, including murder and torture, made by hundreds of Iraqi civilians by British armed forces

. How many cases have they examined?

The investigative team, led by a team of retired police officers, has looked at 1,490 cases of abuse, the vast majority brought to the unit’s attention by Public Interest Lawyers, which closed down in the summer after being stripped of legal aid funding over alleged irregularities in connection with a number of Iraqi claims.

. What offences have been alleged?

They range from alleged murder to low-level violence from the start of the military campaign in Iraq, March 2003, through to the major combat operations of April 2003 and the following years spent maintaining security and mentoring and training Iraqi security forces.

. Why has IHAT been criticised?

It has been accused of “betraying” British veterans after revelations that three servicemen, including a decorated major, could become the first troops to be prosecuted over the death of an Iraqi teenager 13 years ago. The decision to consider charges comes despite a 2006 military investigation that cleared the three men of wrongdoing.

. How have veterans responded?

Hilary Meredith, the lawyer acting for the major, who has not been identified, condemned the recommendation to prosecute her client. She said he was awarded two medals for bravery and is now suffering mental and physical health problems.

. How much has the inquiry cost?

Red Snapper Recruitment is paid nearly £5million a year by the Ministry of Defence to provide staff, including ex-police officers, to the inquiry. The agency is owned by husband and wife Martin and Helen Jerrold; company accounts show the couple were paid a dividend of £318,539 in in the 12 months to May 31, 2014 in the year after the contract was awarded. The firm’s profits have also risen – from 181,980 in May 2013 to £1.1million in May last year.

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Britain, Economic, Europe, European Union, Financial Markets, Government, Italy, Politics

Italy’s populist vote and the uncertainty of the euro

EUROZONE CRISIS

IN a continuation of a wave of populist voting following Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, Italy has now followed suit. The ousting and forced resignation of Matteo Renzi, a very successful prime minister in Italy, adds yet more resonance to an EU that is breaking at the seams.

Despite what Marine le Pen, the far-right leader of France’s National Front, would like to portray, Italy’s revolt was not particularly based on an anti-EU stance. The top populist parties in Italy, Five Star and the Northern League, are not opposed to membership of the EU itself but they are averse to the Eurozone.

Nevertheless, it will hardly be seen as a ringing endorsement of the actions of the EU. The issues that have driven this latest referendum result – fears over the waves of refugees from Africa, a desire to rise up against the establishment, and unhappiness over the way the economy has been managed – are the same dissenting signals that we have seen elsewhere.

It is the economic impact that we have most to fear from the Italian result. There is also the issue of what that might mean for the negotiations over Britain’s exit from the EU. The Italian economy is far from healthy, despite marginal improvements in unemployment rates, and the banks remain weak. The country’s debt-to-GDP ratio, at a staggering 133 per cent, is second only to Greece’s in the Eurozone. Despite Italy being the Eurozone’s third largest economy, the country has contracted by around 12 per cent since the financial crisis of 2008.

President Sergio Mattarella will be anxious now to ease fears of instability. But regardless of what action he takes there will be a delay as the markets adjust. In reality, he remains helpless as to what he can do to ease those fears. How long that period of instability lasts is the biggest uncertain factor the markets face. Financial markets do not like uncertainty or instability.

There is a risk that the failure of a major Italian bank, such as the troubled Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, could set off a wider crisis. Making the banks strong enough becomes more difficult amid political ambivalence.

That could well provoke another crisis in the euro, at a time when Britain will be in negotiations about its withdrawal from the EU. The fusion of these events is not going to help any new euro crisis or aid Theresa May and her government getting a favourable Brexit deal.

The most telling comment yet has come from the German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who has said there was no reason for a euro crisis but that Italy urgently needs a functioning government. Startling. Mr Schaeuble infers that a currency crisis was not inevitable. Unfortunately, ending the uncertainty is more than just an Italian problem.

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Britain, European Union, Government, Legal, Society

The Brexit vote and the Supreme Court

BREXIT

supreme-court2

The government is to appeal against the High Court’s ruling that Article 50 cannot be invoked without Parliament’s support, so that means the case will now be heard in the Supreme Court. The Court comprises 11 senior judges.

Intro: Increasingly, it is not so much Brexit that divides the country as the bitter struggle to prevent it

ON Monday, 5 December, 2016, one of the most important questions of British constitutional history will be examined.

Eleven judges of the Supreme Court will hear the Government appeal against a High Court decision that 17.4 million votes in the EU referendum had no force in law. The High Court ruled that Parliament must be consulted before Article 50 can be triggered and negotiations with the EU begin; the Government believes that the referendum rendered that unnecessary. The Supreme Court will begin four days of hearings and a judgment is expected in January.

The 11 Supreme Court judges are faced with a highly political decision. With no written constitution to guide them, this is not a mere question of law, to be solved like a mathematical equation, with a definite correct or incorrect answer. Yet, this was precisely the spirit in which the High Court tried to approach the case, citing centuries-old precedents and ignoring the fact that the June referendum was an unprecedented historic act.

The free press should make no apology for shining a light on the Supreme Court. It is their job to scrutinise the powerful, and most voters have become aware just how powerful these 11 judges really are. With so little to help them in the law books, the clear risk is that the judges may be influenced by their personal opinions, no matter how assiduously they try to set them aside.

It is not a question of attacking the integrity and intelligence of our judges. But, on political matters, it is no more possible for judges than for anyone else to be perfectly neutral, uninfluenced by their own views or those of the people with whom they share their lives.

With only a simple majority needed for a ruling, it will be disturbing for Brexiteers to note that no fewer than five Supreme Court judges have publicly expressed their views which appear to be sympathetic to the EU, while six have close links with people who have publicly attacked the Leave campaign.

This matter should have been dismissed by the High Court. The last government held an in/out referendum on membership of the EU with the explicit promise that the result would be binding. While it is true that Britain is a representative (as opposed to direct) democracy, the EU vote was a rare exception to our political norms, an exception in which the people were asked to instruct the government what to do. Remainers cannot be motivated by concern for parliamentary sovereignty, because, if they were, they would have opposed the transfer of its powers to Europe since the Seventies. Militants see Parliament as an impediment to Brexit, a way of talking it out or watering it down. The application that has led to the current impasse was based on disgruntled mischief.

It is no fault of the Supreme Court justices that they find themselves in such a position of responsibility. They are only doing their job. And their job is a critical part of our constitution – testing laws and ensuring government actions adhere to them. However, there is no escaping the political nature of this case. The judges are being asked to rule on whether the Brexit-backing voters or Remain-backing MPs should have greater authority.

On numerous issues, the courts have defied Parliament and ministers; amending the ‘bedroom tax’, for example, or by outlawing extended solitary confinement for jihadists on grounds of human rights law. In such instances, they have become judicial activists. Which is all very well, but they cannot then complain when their decisions are questioned and their backgrounds and views analysed publicly.

The Government’s case is a good one and the Supreme Court may well agree. We should hope that the judges will remember the legitimacy of the referendum and its verdict, and not as the Government’s senior legal officer, Attorney General Jeremy Wright, has said that the vote be relegated ‘almost to a footnote’ as the Remain camp would hope for.

Increasingly, it is not so much Brexit that divides the country as the bitter struggle to prevent it. Most Remainers have probably accepted defeat and want to get on with their lives. Businesses need to know what is going to happen next. The world is waiting for EU negotiations to begin. It is in the national, even global, interest to proceed.

If the Supreme Court disagrees and says that Parliament must become involved, so be it. In that instance, it seems likely that Theresa May will smooth a Bill through Parliament to trigger Article 50 and limit any unnecessary delay. Of course, such developments would then attract dissenters who would attempt to dilute and frustrate any bill proceeding.

When governments ask the people what to do, they must follow their instructions. They are duty bound to follow through the mandate that has been raised. That’s the nature of how a democratic society operates.

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