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| Means of redress
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Means of redress
One of the most severe breaches of human rights is the lack of means of redress in cases of injustice. There are several major obstacles to obtaining justice or redress if a court has failed to deliver on either. The first is the inaccessibility and attitude of the legal profession. The free legal aid system is overwhelmed in most countries where it exists and the legal profession is notorious for its profit-making, to the point of solicitors and lawyers being referred to as 'greedy'. Every public enquiry, no matter the human tragedy it may have involved, appears to have only one sure result, often referred to as 'obscene' - the enrichment by huge amounts of the lawyers and judges involved. Advertisements by solicitors for the public to identify and reveal possible injuries suffered in public places make a mockery of justice, damage society and bring courts into even further disrepute.
So the first obstacle facing a citizen attempting to find a course of redress for a perceived injustice or breach of human rights is to find an affordable and interested and competent legal professional. A 2011 London High Court appeal in which the editor of this web site was involved took five years to mount and cost 240,000 pounds sterling, of which 40,000 had to be raised in cash, 100,000 in pro bono legal work and 100,000 in pro bono forensics work. The judges refused to consider vital new evidence, even on one matter issuing a gagging order and dismissed the appeal. The case is now before the Criminal Case Review Commission, but one of the applicants has since died so the legal and judicial system can grind on ponderously knowing that it has time and endless financial resources on its side.
Those new to human rights activism may have the somewhat naive belief that the media will come to their rescue in obvious cases of injustice and may learn with regret that the media supports the ruling dominant narrative, whatever it may be. This writer once phoned an editor of an Irish daily newspaper to tell him that evidence was emerging that a high-profile individual ruined by a conviction for accessing illegal images on the Internet was in fact a victim of credit card fraud (that evidence is still slowly grinding its way through the justice system). His response, genuine and regretful, was most revealing and one not to be forgotten. He said, "Sadly, the story of a man wrongfully accused is not news: that of a child abused is news."
So if the justice system and the media, together with a seemingly uncaring public, appear to have failed us to where do we turn?
This is perhaps the most important part of this web site. A precedent was set by the American Founding Fathers and it has been followed since by equally wise men and women. With an understanding that laws in the end do not always protect human rights and on the contrary that the laws themselves may be used to undermine individual rights and justice itself - in other words, that the law may become abused by self-interest groups, politicians, the state, the legal profession and the courts - or that it may become an exclusive resource for the wealthy or be made unintelligible to the ordinary person through deliberate legalese and obfuscation, they compiled documents, magnificent in their scope, specificity and simplicity under such titles as constitutions, bills of rights, and conventions, which became the highest orders to which one could refer to and appeal to in those cases where local laws failed to deliver justice or reneged on human rights.
The best known of these are the Constitution of the United States, various constitutions in other Western countries, such as the Irish Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the UN Convention on Human Rights. Sadly, the Constitution of the United States is now being ignored and overridden by demands from the wars on terror, drugs and sex and there are pressures from the US for other countries, notably the UK to follow in their steps. This is what may be reflected by the UK government beginning to question its support for the European Convention on Human Rights and the court administering it - the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR).
Appeals to the European or UN Conventions are not, however, simple as under the rules of either one must first exhaust all remedies and local avenues of redress, which in practice requires an expensive appeal to a national high court. If and when that is lost, the route is then open for all individuals within Europe to appeal to the European Court and for those outside Europe in countries that have ratified the UN Convention to the UN. For Europeans failure at the European Court would also leave the UN as a last resort. US citizens have neither a European nor a UN Convention to appeal to as the US has refused to ratify the latter despite originally signing it.
There are a few options still open to US citizens. One is the American Constitution where judges and prosecutors still respect it. Another, being currently employed on behalf of a lifer by the team behind this initiative is a remarkable device, which may have been designed to counter the plague of bad defence attorneys. It is a 2255 Motion which is an appeal based on evidence of inadequate defence, which can include both lazy and incompetent defence attorneys and expert witnesses. It is interesting to watch a US televised celebrity trial and to note the difference in performance between inadequate defence attorneys and brilliant prosecution attorneys. The latter may appear to be heroic stars but they can be deadly to justice where an innocent defendant is concerned.
The team behind this web site have experience of a British High Court appeal, a submission to the CCRC, a petition to the ECHR and a US 2255 Motion as well as numerous individual court trials, cautions and interactions with the police. Also much experience with poor solicitors and lawyers and corrupt expert witnesses.
Created on 04/13/2012 01:47 PM by Editor
Updated on 01/26/2013 12:32 PM by Editor
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