Category Archives: Legal

Britain, Government, Legal, Military, Society

Court Martial Review Board of a Royal Marine Sergeant found guilty of murder…

THE TENETS OF JUSTICE

In the High Court, yesterday, three judges lifted the anonymity of the Royal Marine Sergeant found guilty of murdering a seriously wounded Taliban prisoner – the first British serviceman to be found guilty of murder on the battlefield since the Second World War. A fundamental and central tenet of British justice is that justice should be seen to be done.

Defence counsel argued, with reason, that both he and his family could become targets for vengeful extremists. The judges dismissed this argument.

Related:

Yet, what of another trial currently taking place of two men accused of murdering Fusilier Lee Rigby? In this case, the jury has heard the statement from one of the accused, Michael Adebolajo, who has stated how he deliberately drove a motor vehicle into the soldier at 40mph, before attempting to decapitate him with a meat cleaver.

Adebolajo believed that Fusilier Rigby was a ‘fair target’ because, he said, a soldier is ‘someone who joins the army with a kind of understanding that your life is at risk.’ According to Adebolajo, this applies even if he is a ‘random individual’ who just happened to be walking down a street at the wrong time. However, the jury has decided in his case that Adebolajo is wrong that any soldier is deemed fair game for beheading just because they ‘know the risks’.

Primarily, the law needs to balance open justice with protecting the citizen. As long as there are those who feel it is perfectly acceptable to kill people for political or religious grounds and society is aware of such people, then the law really should protect potential targets. The Royal Marine Sergeant has been sentenced by the Court Martial Review Board to a life in prison, and he is to serve a minimum of ten years. He has also been dismissed from the service with disgrace. Any thought, however, of naming the other Royal Marines involved in the case of the murdered Taliban insurgent, who have subsequently been found not guilty, should be rejected outright as speedily as possible.

It is the view of this site that the Royal Marine Sergeant should not have been named.

Standard
Britain, Government, Legal, Society

Proposed changes to libel law would inhibit the free press…

LIBEL LAW REFORM

The Ministry of Justice has announced that the Government will back Lord Justice Leveson’s proposals for ‘costs protection’ in defamation and libel cases, making it easier for individuals to sue media companies. Under the current rules, if someone brings a case for libel and loses, they have to pay the defendant’s legal costs as well as their own. If proposals by justice minister, Helen Grant, go through, a judge will be able to impose a ‘one-way’ costs order. The effect of this will mean the poorest claimants will not have to cover the defendant’s bill for legal costs if they lose their case, and those on average incomes may only have to pay a proportion of it.

Taken in isolation, the perceived notion of changing the law to ensure that victims of libel (whatever their means) can take on powerful media organisations will be a good one. For one may argue that legal protection from defamation and invasion of privacy ought not to be restricted to the wealthy and well-heeled. In practical terms, though, its effect upon the free press would be iniquitous. The floodgates would be opened as individuals – aided by no-win, no-fee lawyers – freed from the risk of having to pick up the tab for losing a weak case, would sue media organisations on the flimsiest of pretexts. By removing the restraint imposed by the danger of losing, the plan opens the door to any number of opportunistic and vexatious claims.

If the proposals are adopted, journalists and editors might be dissuaded from reporting stories that they fear could trigger a legal battle. Even if they believe that they have right on their side (and could easily win the libel suit), knowing that they would have to cover the costs of a losing litigant would, undoubtedly, make them think twice before reporting the story, however legally defendable they might be.

The Leveson inquiry was set up in response to real and serious abuses by a handful of journalists, the consequences of which are now working their way through the criminal justice system. Whilst there is no-doubt that the newspaper industry requires better, tougher and reactive self-regulation, a free press is a critical part of our democracy and civil society. It would hardly be conducive to investigative journalism, or even equitable, if media organisations have to pay out every time a false charge of defamation is raised against them.

There is no question that libel cases cost too much, and that action’ of libel, defamation and invasion of privacy cause real suffering. But one-way costs are as disproportionate as they are fraught with unintended consequences.

It is both unjustifiable and unfair to allow the criminal misdeeds of a tiny minority of corrupt journalists to crimp the activities of journalism as a whole.

A vigorous and unfettered press is as important as ever, and it must be preserved and protected. The Ministry of Justice must go back and revise its proposals on libel law reform.

Standard
Britain, Government, Legal, Military

‘Legal justification’ for air strikes over Syria raises a storm…

THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT’S LEGAL POSITION

MILITARY action against Syria will be legal even if Britain fails to get a fresh UN resolution, the Government has claimed.

In a highly unusual move, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, ordered the release of a brief summary of the Government’s ‘legal position’ for launching retaliatory strikes against Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The document is effectively a summary of the advice drawn up for the Cabinet by the Attorney General Dominic Grieve.

Former UN deputy secretary general Lord Malloch-Brown has warned that the legal case set out in the 660-word document was ‘a little tenuous’. Lord Malloch-Brown, who served as a minister in the last Labour government, said it was not clear that action in Syria would save lives – a key test in international law for using force on humanitarian grounds.

Other experts have warned the Government’s case was ‘extremely controversial’.

Mr Cameron told MPs the ‘excellent’ advice made it clear that intervention on humanitarian grounds would be legal even if, as expected, Russia vetoes a new resolution Britain is seeking at the UN Security Council condemning the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime and giving authority for the world to use ‘all necessary measures to protect civilians.’

The document says that without the UN resolution, three key tests would have to be met. There has to be ‘convincing evidence’ of ‘extreme humanitarian distress.’

It must be ‘objectively clear that there is no practicable alternative to the use of force if lives are to be saved’. And the use of force must be ‘necessary and proportionate’ and ‘strictly limited in time and scope’. The document says that ‘all three conditions would clearly be met in this case’ as the Assad regime had been ‘killing its people for two years’ and had repeatedly used chemical weapons, diplomacy had failed and the planned strikes were limited to ‘averting a humanitarian catastrophe’.

But Michael Caplan, QC, said ‘all possible avenues’ at the UN must first be explored before any strikes, if Russia vetoes the Security Council resolution. This could include a rare referral to full UN General Assembly to provide greater legal cover, he said.

Standard