ENGLAND AND WALES: IS IT TIME TO SPLIT THE LEGAL SYSTEM?
I recently wrote an article about the above for publication on the Institute for Welsh Affairs’ website “Click on Wales”. It was published slightly amended here >>> England and Wales: is it time to split the legal system? - Click on Wales
http://www.iwa.wales/click/2017/03/england-wales-time-split-legal-system/
Here is my full original article:-
ENGLAND AND WALES – TIME TO SPLIT THE LEGAL SYSTEM?
There are now beginning to be moves afoot to split the unitary “jurisdiction” of England and Wales into two separate national jurisdictions.
In many ways such a split is not as radical a move as it might seem, bearing in mind that there are already separate jurisdictions in Scotland; in Northern Ireland; in the Isle of Man and in the Channel Isles with different Judges, procedures and often different substantive legal rules. Separate jurisdictions do not necessarily cause much practical difficulty in dealing with either civil matters or criminal matters. What it does however mean is that there would be separate legal professions.
Furthermore, even outside the Commonwealth, jurisdictions like Southern Ireland have relatively similar rules.
The jurisdictions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and quite a few others of the old Empire/Commonwealth are similar to. There are also often less differences between their legal systems and the English/Welsh legal system than there is with the Roman Law based jurisdiction in Scotland.
It is more difficult to deal with continental European systems since they are not based on Common Law principles but rather on civil law codes deriving from Roman Law, with substantively different legal rules and often dramatically different legal procedures!
My interest in the splitting of the current unitary jurisdiction of “England and Wales” into two national ones was first raised by a discussion that I had some months ago with a senior Welsh Judge who said that he wants to see a split.
Then, just before Christmas, the Law Society Gazette had an article called in the printed version “A bridge too far” talking about splitting the jurisdictions. The on-line edition was called: English solicitors 'could pay extra to practise in Wales'. (It can be found here >>> https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/english-solicitors-could-pay-extra-to-practise-in-wales/5059013.article)
Increasingly the Welsh Parliament/Senedd are legislating for Wales, in a way that is different than the legislation for England. There will therefore come a time very soon when it no longer makes sense to have a single jurisdiction.
Putting my hat on as Chairman of the English Democrats rather than as a solicitor I would also welcome separation of the jurisdictions as being an important step in the direction of Independence between our two Nations. In our modern world there is no reason why our two separate Nations should be constrained into the same grossly expensive and inefficient, grandiose and extravagant UK State!
If I were a Welsh solicitor or barrister I would be optimistic about the prospects of a successful separate Welsh Jurisdiction.
As long as the Welsh Government could be persuaded to reduce the currently absolutely ridiculous level of court fees, by which the British Government has been exploiting litigants in the “England and Wales” jurisdiction there would be real benefits.
The Welsh Government would then have the right to run its own Legal Aid scheme. This could be more like the successful Scottish one and less like the unfair disaster that the “British” Government has created.
It should also be pointed out that the Welsh Government ought to want to take-over the judicial appointments system, which in England and Wales is currently very politicised.
Judges here are currently appointed and promoted by the Judicial Appointments Commission. The JAC was set up by Lord Derry Irvine, when he was Tony Blair’s Lord Chancellor, which he publically boasted would prevent the appointment or promotion of “those with reactionary views”. This aim might appeal to you or repulse you depending on which side you stand on politically, but what cannot be denied is that this is an expressly political criterion for the appointment of Judges. It is wholly inappropriate to getting the best lawyers appointed as Judges. It is also contrary to providing the best service to those who use the court system!
Far from being a problem the separate jurisdictions could make the Welsh jurisdiction very attractive and might lead to many businesses having a Welsh-only legal jurisdiction clause in commercial contracts since there would be less expense and less delay and perhaps a better selection of sensible Welsh Judges.
Also from an economic point of view the current arrangements are clearly not working very well for Welsh lawyers as it appears that fees in Wales are dramatically lower than those in England.
A separate and overhauled and sensibly rationalised completely Welsh legal system could well be much more competitive with the English jurisdiction and provide a boost not only to Welsh lawyers but also to the Welsh economy.
As the Gazette article says:- “The buildings are all here (in Wales), the judges are all here. More is spent per head in England,’ said Hughes. ‘At the moment Wales is not gaining [in terms of] access to justice. SMEs in Wales are subsidising multi-million-pound litigation between oligarchs in London. That does nothing for the community in Wales – the fees are not coming back.’
A legally independent Wales would be able to do ‘imaginative’ things to enhance access, Hughes suggested, such as introduce a contingency legal aid fund. ‘Wales would not be a particularly small common law jurisdiction. If it were a US state, 20 [states] would be smaller,’ he added.
‘The problems of the Wales bill are largely to do with the mania for preserving a fused jurisdiction,’ said Hughes. ‘But the bill is a con. It is not a reserved powers model on any sensible understanding. There is a presumption against competence in private law.
’Since our pamphlet came out the Assembly has come out in support of a separate jurisdiction and the Welsh government is using the arguments we put forward – both economic and constitutional.’
As both an English Solicitor and also as the Chairman of the English Democrats, I welcome these moves. Also if any reader in Wales supports a separate Welsh legal system then I would urge them to write to their Assembly Members and MP to lobby them to support a separate legal system. Do not forget also to write in to Barrister David Hughes, of 30 Park Place Chambers in Cardiff, supporting him as well!
It occurred to me that there as many EU citizens resident in probably mostly England as there are Welsh. Perhaps they should be allowed to be judged by a system of Roman Law! There has been a recent case up here of a Hungarian jailed for the rape and murder of his "partner" for 28 years. He committed this offence just after being released from an English jail. I am sure that he would be happier serving his sentence in his native Hungary as we have to cope with increasing prison overcrowding. And now we hear that the gentleman who tweeted Gina Miller in a racially aggravated manner after she led the campaign to reverse Brexit is up in court. And the case of a gentleman who shouted something racist at the Cenotaph in 2015 is to be re-opened.
ReplyDeleteLiberal, multicultural fanatic Canada is having a problem with "refugees" fleeing the United States after the election of President Trump and seeking sanctuary north of the border. This has proved disconcerting for the residents of a town on the border faced with 20 or so young men of Middle Eastern origin arriving on their doorsteps. But a government spokesman has said "the more the merrier" as "diversity is strength". Whoever arrived at such a conclusion is a mystery to me and it was something that conservative thinkers in this country have questioned. The above examples of the way that diversity fractures homogeneous countries give the lie to this claim. It is one backed by Jusin Trudeau whose Quebecois father multiculturalised Canada to break down the British majority. It seems that the same game is being played out here in Europe as well. The population of the global south is due to double before the end of the century so it is obvious that Europe and North America will be well and truly swamped.
Those opposed to this Agenda 21 policy are now being labelled as stooges of the Russian government. The American Congress is to vote against Russia's supposed interference in this years elections in three countries on the Continent. There are none so blind as those who will not see the truth; namely what is happening in Europe and North America and with the Brexit vote had nothing to do with Russia - had Brexit gone the other way then there are those who believe that it would have been the CIA behind it.
And we have learnt that the CIA were heavily involved in trying to afffect the outcome of the French 2012 election. The fact is that Russia's external channels are the only ones giving airtime to the anti-NWO sentiments sweeping across Europe and North America. As the treatment of Trump by the MSM demonstrated and the Breixt campaign by such as the BBC showed, anybody who broadcast how an increasingly large number of Europeans feel about the EU, globlism and globalisation is just dismissed as being a Russian sympathiser or agent. Welcome to the West's own version of the Soviet Union with such as Julian Assange and President Putin being portrayed by the MSM, especially in the US, as sharing the same bed.
American economist Doug Casey has just said that he foresees the balkanisation - Yugoslavia style - of the United States and complete fragmentation but he does not see this as a bad thing. Europe will undoubtedly follow. Casey is admitting that multiculturalism is not strength but a precursor for the collapse of formerly homogeneous nations.
ReplyDeleteIf something is likely to be of advantage to Wales, why is it unlikely to be of advantage to England, which has more in common with Wales than with competitors abroad? The whole argument seems based on 'divide et impera':
ReplyDelete"SMEs in Wales are subsidising multi-million-pound litigation between oligarchs in London. That does nothing for the community in Wales – the fees are not coming back."
- well, so could complain SMEs in England outside "city-state" London - then why treat them differently from SMEs in Wales? The infrastructure we and our ancestors worked and paid for is now pimped out to the global highest bidders. London has become a multicultural grab-bag inhabited by people who have nothing in common except money. The UK Government is NO LONGER REPRESENTATIVE.
The reality is that this England/Wales legal jurisdiction split-shtick is another facet / step-in-prep for GLOBAL regionalisation; the nation state is dismantled by change agents within and divided up into sub-State regions or Reichsgau as future administrative components of the imminently arriving world tyranny.
The latest example of the UK Reichsgau appears here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tees_Valley_mayoral_election,_2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tees_Valley_Combined_Authority
In a harmonious, homogeneous society like Japan, the law assumes a very minor role in regulating a community; it is only in fragmented, atomised societies under attack from subversives-in-government like the UK that the law gets ratcheted up to control the increasingly inflamed passions of the competing special interest groups and their followers that did not exist in any sort of numbers fifty years ago.
Even in the commercial world, a separate legal jurisdiction to me makes no sense, it is just more overhead disincentivising business expansion and competitiveness, particularly in Wales with its unrelatedly tiny population compared with England's. Law is NOT a product - it does not create wealth, the cost of its administration is just another tax. In particular the less "output" Parliament creates, the more productive society will be.
May I remind all concerned: the law is the servant of society, NOT the master. And he who pays the piper - Joe Public Taxpayer - calls the tune.
http://www.constitution.org/lrev/rodell/woe_unto_you_lawyers.htm
https://alisonchabloz.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/twitter-fishwives-frothfest-continues/
ReplyDeleteCPS continues its war on the indigenous.
Abolish the BBC, and abolish the CPS!
Yesterday's election in the Netherlands threw up a phrase which is now gaining currency with the Left-Liberal elite; "white nationalism". There was a sigh of relief from the European elites and their left-liberal press that Wilders did not gain the predicted 35 seats but only 20, although increasing his number in the parliament by five whilst Mark Rutte lost 8 and the Socialists were all but wiped out. Reading BBC's teletext there is no doubt that this is a good thing. And President Hollande with his 4% approval rating is glad that the "extremists" did not make a breakthrough. Rutte said that Holland did not want that sort of populism. But as Wilders replied, "there is only one populism". France will be hoping that this result will lead to a dwindling of support for Marine Le Pen. And yes, watching Russia Today's coverage of the election, it is obvious that there is more support for "anti-establishment" parties there than is to be found in the western MSM. As Wilders said, the Dutch press were always against him. But as one man ready to vote for him said, "We want our country back, enough is enough", this bearing in mind that the Netherlands is destined to be one of the first countries in Western Europe to have a Muslim majority.
ReplyDeleteCross Talk on Russia Today covered the subject of populism and reached the conclusion that I have stated on this blog that the Liberal-Left has been ideologically driven for almost one hundred years and has merely used the ordinary worker as cannon fodder for their ideology, little caring about him per se. This has been shown in America where traditional blue collar Democrats voted for Trump to get their jobs back whilst their party was obsessed with introducing transgender toilets everywhere.
"White nationalism" is obviously put on a par by these people with "white supremacism". We now live in a world of projection and the mirror image as the culturally Marxist West becomes a mirror image of the old Soviet Union. In a local library yesterday I spied a map of the European Union. We are now in a post EU age and the map reminded me of those of the Soviet Union to be found in my atlas from the 1970s.
As regards the mirror image, the Left has banged on about white colonialism and racism for decades, rejoicing when those in the global south espoused nationalism and sued for independence. But now we have the situation where the global south, with the help of the Left and their puppeteers, international finance and big business, is colonising white countries and that is ok and "white nationalism" is evil. Would, therefore, Native American nationalism, or Mauri nationalism or aborigine nationalism be deemed to be evil in their eyes? I very much doubt it. Europeans subjected to Marxist globalist ideology since the War have at last found people who will set them free. But that is the last thing that the Left wants to see. For "white nationalism" really means a revolt against the destruction of white national identities and the white race per se, which has been the aim of the Left since the 1920s.
Why should the English have to be saddled with the Welsh? Let them go their own way. Split the legal systems. There are countries smaller than Wales with seats on the UN. Look at the Baltic states and Iceland with a population less than half a million which seems to be doing alright and has had its own legal system since time out of mind.
ReplyDeleteScotland has always made its own laws. So should Wales. Bring on the split.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DvZgFqKXZw&t=40m5s
ReplyDelete(at 40m 5s) The LaRouchePAC mob at UK Column examine the meme of Welsh independence, er, *regionalisation* (5 April).