Democrat June 2000 (Number 44)
European Union wants to introduce a new legal system - Corpus Juris
Our home affairs correspondent explains how this would take away many fundamental and hard won rights
One of the many exasperating features of politics,
especially EU politics, is the way in which policies and laws of a
controversial or unpopular nature, are slowly insinuated into our
lives in the hope that few will notice, or that once the seeds of
an idea are sown, the idea will take root.
When Home Secretary Jack Straw argues that our court
procedures are inefficient and costly and suggests part of the solution
is to reduce the number of trials by jury, one might be forgiven for
thinking there is a hidden agenda somewhere.
Courts
Anyone who has to spend time in our law courts, is
painfully aware of the need to tighten up on chaotic administrative
procedures, not only in Crown courts where jury trials are held, but
also in magistrates courts and elsewhere. Unfortunately this chaos
has been accepted as a matter of course, an irritation to be put up
with.
To castigate our legal system and erode it because
it is badly administered is no solution. The answer is to ensure that
incompetence and slack administration is sorted out with a determination
that has been missing for decades.
By raising the matter of inefficiencies in our courts
and blaming even in part the jury system,
That system is outlined in the document Corpus Juris.
This document emerged out of a meeting which took place in San Sebastian,
Spain in April 1997 to which certain selected individuals were invited.
The meeting was low key and publicity, if any, was
kept to an absolute minimum. UK citizens who should be consulted on
this issue were not informed and indeed know very little of its implications
today.
EU Fraud
One of the stated intentions of Corpus Juris is to
protect the EU budget from fraud. This is somewhat ironic when one
is reminded that EU Commissioners and high ranking civil servants
who, responsible for high level fraud in the last administration were
not even dealt with in law. Instead they received golden handshakes
and fat pensions. In contrast, experience suggests that anyone with
sufficient courage to expose corrupt practices, can expect to be punished
by the same administrators who rewarded the bureaucrats who it seems
are exempt from the process of law outlined in Corpus Juris.
What then is Corpus Juris and how does it differ fundamentally
from laws here?
Act of 1679
In Britain the Act of Habeas Corpus 1679, enacted
to overcome repression at the whims of kings, clarified and helped
to enforce traditional rights with regard to detention by public authorities.
The writ of Habeas Corpus, directed those having custody of a prisoner
to produce the body (habeas corpus) of the prisoner with a statement
to justify his detention. There are of course many other facets to
Habeas Corpus of which, space prevents further discussion here. Fundamentally
however, it entitles an arrested citizen to be brought before a court
and charged, within 60 hours of arrest. In addition the burden of
proof lies with the prosecution.
European Public Prosecutor
Corpus Juris would ostensibly empower the European
Public Prosecutor to imprison anyone for up to six months, renewable
for a further three months, pending investigation, if they are alleged
to be guilty of fraud which could damage the EU. The decision to prosecute
is made by the EPP following which investigations are carried out
to ascertain if there is enough evidence to prosecute. The reverse
of UK law.
Mainland European courts consist of professional judges,
not jurors or lay magistrates thus doing away with Habeas Corpus and
Jury trials.
Objection to any trial publicity, whether in the public
interest or not, by either side would result in proceedings in secret.
Financial interests
An explanatory memorandum states; `What we propose,
is a set of rules which constitutes a kind of corpus juris (body of
law) limited to the penal protection of the financial interests of
the EU, designated to ensure, a largely unified European legal area,
a fairer, simpler and more efficient system of repression.' Repression
is exactly that which we tried to get rid of in 1679.
Reality is, Corpus Juris is about applying the same
criminal justice system throughout Europe which, added to all the
other policies will ensure that once we are in, there will be no way
out. Eventually it will become clear that this system will cover a
whole range of issues, not merely those concerned with the protection
of EU financial issues.
Judge of Freedoms
The European Public Prosecutor will be based in Brussels
with delegated prosecutors in the capital city of each member state.
A Judge of Freedoms, whose duty it would be to see fair play, is part
of the stable of the EPP.
Crime is of course a serious problem in modern society
and has to be dealt with, but the architects of EU and Corpus Juris
are obsessed with the one fits all philosophy of which common currency,
common police force and single European Army, harmonised taxation
and Schengen to deal with refugees and asylum seekers, are all part
of the grand plan.
There is every indication that once the laws are in
place, anyone deemed to be offending EU dictat will be dealt with
by Europol and the EPP. The writing of an article such as this could
be ruled as harmful to the EU.
Rumpole
John Mortimer, Barrister and creator of Rumpole,
writing on May Day [2000] in the Daily Mail, mentions that the Home Secretary
had agreed the proposition that British police could be instructed
to arrest British citizens on the order of a European judge. Those
arrested could then be sent to be tried by systems without a writ
of habeas corpus or the burden of proof placed on the prosecution.
He goes on to mention human failings, to point out
that there is always room for improvement and that cases go wrong
in the best of regulated law courts. The Crown Prosecution Service
is no doubt inefficient, but just as some countries produced better
painters or composers than us, we have, he says, `a fairer criminal
law than our European neighbours.'
Protect what we have
The article finishes by pointing out that we should
all, no matter what our political beliefs, fight hard to protect a
system that has served us well.
Our legal rights are too precious to be thoughtlessly
signed away. This is a judicial system to protect corporate capital
not the interests of people.
See two flow charts of 'who elects whom' and 'who has the power'