FAQs
No. 1. Q. HOW WILL THE 1998 HUMAN
RIGHTS ACT, WHICH COMES INTO EFFECT IN OCTOBER OF THIS YEAR, ADD TO
THE PROTECTION OF THE AVERAGE CITIZEN NOW ENCUMBERED BY A GREAT MASS
OF OPPRESSIVE LEGISLATION ENACTED IN RECENT YEARS FOR THE BENEFIT
OF CORPORATE INTERESTS?
A. Your question contains a number
of assumptions about the functioning of the system of justice that
would not accord with the experience of ordinary men and women. Judges
in this country generally come from the upper classes and have been
socialized to the value system of the elite group. Judges from humbler
origins, and these are far fewer in number, have been successfully
thus socialized before they are even considered for appointment. This
applies also to the relatively few women judges. Judges tend to base
their decisions as well as their remarks in court in accordance with
the prevailing dominant culture rather than on statute. Countervailing
arguments and "uncomfortable" evidence is then ridiculed
and rubbished. The number of identified miscarriages of justice must
therefore be seen in this light if any sense at all is to be made
of the shambles. This number to date is only the tip of a gigantic
iceberg of judicial wrongdoing. Highly paid legal professionals know
only too well that the road to survival and success is through collusion,
and so we have a self-perpetuating social, cultural and political
order. Whilst changes are superficial and do not threaten entrenched
interests, they provide ready propaganda to the effect that the system
is all-inclusive, flexible and evolutionary; the fact of the matter
is that interlopers are rapidly identified and ejected. The tiny number
of cases involving racialism where justice is dispensed is proof positive
that this is indeed the case. The Race Relations Act of 1976 has,
in the main, remained idle on the statute books for almost a quarter
of a century.
Similarly, the Children's Act of 1988
has, in the main, NOT been implemented. The result is the rampant
and widespread psychological, physical and sexual abuse of vulnerable
little children in state-run children's homes. Britain has been roundly
criticised in the children's committees of the United Nations.
No. 2. Q. I am a Commonwealth citizen
now living in Britain. I was scarcely prepared for a scenario of the
widespread abuse of the human rights of people of all ages, from childhood
to old age, as well as the absence of an efficent, honest and unbiased
system of appeal and redress.
A. If you recall that the wealth and
development of the modern British state was founded on a uniquely
unparalleled system of unequal trade, global conquest and genocide,
with the extirpation of the populations of whole continents, you might
conclude that these social and political inequalities and injustices
are culturally based. The fact of the matter is that Britain has been
a strong centralised state, ever since, in fact, the rise of a strong
merchant/trading class at the end of the mediaeval period. Power now
lies in the hands of a small powerful ruling, owning elite lording
it over a rubber-stamp Parliament (legislature), a subservient cabinet
(executive), a client judiciary and civil service and a compliant
press (fourth estate).
The fact that Britain has from, relatively
early times, been a centralised state has stood it in good stead when
faced with its European competitors in the acquisition of colonies
and in imperial wars, as well as when faced with less warlike races
defending their homes and their freedom.
