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I think he will have to sue Jacqui Smith as an individual, since The Crown has immunity from prosecution.

Kilkrazy wrote:I think he will have to sue Jacqui Smith as an individual, since The Crown has immunity from prosecution.

Well, the crown can also issue Immunity to anyone she pleases, so he can sue away, just be sure to pay the lawyers when the case is thrown out.

I'd bet cheap Mexican pesos thats not how it actually works Gwar, else the Magna Carta and folow on stare decisis would be irrelevant.

Frazzled wrote:I'd bet cheap Mexican pesos thats not how it actually works Gwar, else the Magna Carta and folow on stare decisis would be irrelevant.

Actually, you will be surprised. Both the Police and the Royal Family can offer immunity from prosecution for anything they want, except when the police do it it has to be allowed by the crown. If your president can pardon people, so can ours! The Royal family still has a lot of powers, Powers they will never use, because it would constitute a Constitutional Crisis, but they have them nonetheless. I bet you didn;t know that the Prince of Whales actually "owns" all of Cornwall and at any time can tell the people to GTFO his land?

So Queenie can go to Vito, tell Vito to go to Parliament and machinegun Parliament, but then give Vito immunity?

Er, I'd need secondary verifcation of that power.

It's exactly the same as the US head of state, who can issue a presidential pardon, like Gwar said. It's just got all different names and ting.

As I said, that wouldn't happen, because it would create a Constitutional Crisis, and Parliament would say "Hang the law" and then hang the Queen

I think this protection actually only applies to the monarch as such.

see here.

But I think this only applies to criminal not civil prosecutions. I think that more and more of the previous immunities-- like planning regulations for building etc ( see here ) -- have also been phased out.

Push come to shove I think the Euro laws actually overrule some/many of the older English laws now too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#United_Kingdom

The President cannot extend government immunity to other entities. Thats quite a bit different.

Having said that, she should be under immunity via her position, unless he's suing under a sort of writ forcing her to act in her official capacity. But then again we're talking two different legal sysytems, so the merit of a suit is completely different.

At least he's not suing the UAE. he'd end up in the desert on Youtube...

And for those too lazy to click:

United Kingdom

The power to grant pardons and reprieves is a royal prerogative of mercy of the monarch of the United Kingdom. It was traditionally in the absolute power of the monarch to pardon and release an individual who had been convicted of a crime from that conviction and its intended penalty. Pardons were granted to many in the 18th century on condition that the convicted felons accept transportation overseas, such as to Australia. The first General Pardon in England was issued in celebration of the coronation of Edward III in 1327. In 2006 all British soldiers executed for cowardice during World War I were pardoned, resolving a long-running controversy about the justice of their executions. (See Armed Forces Act 2006.)

There are significant procedural differences in the present use of the royal pardon, however. Today the monarch may only grant a pardon on the advice of the Home Secretary or the First Minister of Scotland (or the Defence Secretary in military justice cases), and the policy of the Home Office and Scottish Executive is only to grant pardons to those who are "morally" innocent of the offence (as opposed to those who may have been wrongly convicted by misapplication of the law). Pardons are generally no longer issued prior to conviction, but only after conviction. A pardon is no longer considered to remove the conviction itself, but only removes the penalty which was imposed. Use of the prerogative is now rare, particularly since the establishment of the Criminal Cases Review Commission and Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which provide a statutory remedy for miscarriages of justice.

To this end, the granting of pardons is very rare and the vast majority of recognised miscarriages of justice were decided upon by the courts. During the Birmingham Six controversy, then Home Secretary Douglas Hurd stressed that he could only make the decision for a pardon if he was "convinced of innocence", which at the time he was not.

One notorious recent case was that of the drug smugglers John Haase and Paul Bennett. They were pardoned in July 1996 from 18-year sentences, having served ten months, on the advice of then Home Secretary Michael Howard. This was intended to reward them for information they gave to the authorities, but there was speculation about Howard’s motives. In 2008, they were given 20-year and 22-year sentences after it was found that their information was unreliable.

In 1980, the Home Secretary William Whitelaw used the prerogative to free David Cooper and Michael McMahon, two "murderers" convicted on poor evidence, after the courts refused to. They died in the 1990s, and were fully cleared posthumously.

According to the Act of Settlement a pardon can not prevent a person from being impeached by Parliament, but may rescind the penalty following conviction. In England and Wales nobody may be pardoned for an offence under section 11 of the Habeas Corpus Act 1679 (unlawfully transporting prisoners out of England and Wales).

Yeh i think reds8 mite be right tho, maybe it doesn't extend to civil courts.

reds8n wrote: Push come to shove I think the Euro laws actually overrule some/many of the older English laws now too.

You honestly think the British Public will let the EU remove their "No Selling Carrots on a Sunday" laws? The Streets will flow with blood!

Frazzled wrote:The President cannot extend government immunity to other entities. Thats quite a bit different.

Having said that, she should be under immunity via her position, unless he's suing under a sort of writ forcing her to act in her official capacity. But then again we're talking two different legal sysytems, so the merit of a suit is completely different.

At least he's not suing the UAE. he'd end up in the desert on Youtube...

Her position is protected, she herself isn't. So if in her personal life she said/did "X" then she could be held responsible for her actions etc. But her office as such, generally, cannot be.

There's exceptions to this obviusly-- people can and do "beat" the Govt. in court over a variety of things.

I think you're taking the protection a bit too far. It's really no different than the exceutive office saying that no action will taken against those who "tortured" or similar. It's not a blanket "license to kill 007" style.

And this protection is limited to criminal not civil cases too AFAIK.

I'd be more interested to see WHERE he thinks he can sue. Of late London has very much been the libel case capital of the world..... but.... my understanding is she would be protected from prosecution in the USA and I don't see how he could put together much of a case over here.

reds8n wrote: I think this protection actually only applies to the monarch as such.

see here.

But I think this only applies to criminal not civil prosecutions. I think that more and more of the previous immunities-- like planning regulations for building etc ( see here ) -- have also been phased out.

Push come to shove I think the Euro laws actually overrule some/many of the older English laws now too.

That sounds to be the case.

I'm way past my Con law classes so take with grain of salt
In the US, immunity of the crown from suit does not extend to consitutional violations.
In addition, Fed and state have the ability to set aside immunity for whatever cause they want. This has been done frequently.
There is also a write structure mandating a government official do something, or not (court orders them to act in their official capacity).

Savage is babbling about some sort of libel/defamation suit I think, which is not like this. Me thinky he no have standy to suity.

Yes, he said that was going for a defamation suit. Although I do find it funny that I saw a muslim cleric and some followers protesting outside of a catholic church with signs saying "kill the pope". No one did anythng, but me thinks that it was hateful and incited hate. I guess the ban only works on non-britishes who want to go to the U.K.

Thank goodness america doesn't have anything like that. Am I right.
^
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Twas a joke.

halonachos wrote:. I guess the ban only works on non-britishes who want to go to the U.K.
.

Yes, that's correct.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Though this does make me wonder if we can now press to have Peter Hitchens banned from the UK. He hates everyone unless said person is himself, in which case he will demand that person be crowned King of everything with a Crown of ill formed, arrogant opinion.

I mean, every time he mentioned Tony Blair in his column (which was every single one) he used the name 'Anthony' Blair. How bloody conceited is that? Joking apart, thats the sort of behaviour liable to get you beaten up, knacked, hoofed and quite possibly severely brayed if carried out in the Pub. And the knob end has a weekly column in the Nazi on Sunday. Sorry, Mail on Sunday.

He really is a prat isn't he. I read his column every now and again and I can't believe that anyone could be so backwards in their views. He loves to bash Women, (for having the audacity to be in the workforce instead of raising children like good housewives) Immigrants, Labour, the Tories (for not being right wing enough), Rock Music (Yep he frequently writes about its evil nature, the 50's called they would like their opinions back!) or just anyone who disagrees with him. On his blog he actually resorts to Name calling when the commenters present differing view points. Doesn't make a difference how well argued it's.

A Classic example was the time he launched an attack on Video games calling them the source of modern evil or something like that. On his blog many people posted that this was a nonsense and no studies had ever proved a definitive link between gaming and violence. Many quoted the findings of proper scientific research into the matter. In the face of this common sense he responded by saying that the only reason (yep only!) to object to the banning of video games was if you played them yourself. If you did so you must have been corrupted by their influence and therefore your argument is irrelevant. Yep that's the sort of pointless circular logic this man deals in. I'm right and your wrong. I know your wrong because you disagree with me and because you disagree with you must be wrong. That sums up virtually every argument this he makes.

I also remember him bringing up the MMR jab and kept bringing it up every single week as the PM hadn't disclosed if his child had had it on the grounds that he didn't want his children used as political footballs. Quite right too. Funny thing is that ever since it emerged that the MMR scare was total codwallop he's been strangely quiet on the matter. no apology or admittance he was wrong he just stopped talking about it.

I hate most most newspaper colomnists in all honestly. They write a few thousand words of utter ill-founded, reactionary, popularist tripe once a week safe in the knowledge they never have to put their money where their mouth is. Non of this comes back to haunt them as by the time next week has arrived they've found another bandwagon to jump onto.

Charlie Brooker, Johan Hari and David Mitchell are the only ones who on the whole speak sense (or just make me laugh).

Come the revolutions both the Hitchens brothers (Even though virtually all Christophers Views are the polar opposite of Peters he does share his grating arrogance) Richard Littlejohn (A total and utter hatemonger), Kelvin Mackenzie and John Gaunt (Basically a pub gobs**te who for some reason has been given a column in the Sun newspaper) will be first against the wall.

Oh and Melanie Phillips (retch!) the cold, black, barley beating heart of the Daily Fail. Not only a hate monger but clearly barking mad. She even written a book about evil 5th columnists within the UK, tactfully called Londonistan. Even the title makes you want to scream. It's an odd mix and ill informed spleen venting, appalling discredited research with a very healthy dose of extreme paranoia (it borders on conspiracy theory levels of insanity at times) and Islamophobia thrown in for good measure.

She was one of the few members of the press who openly supported the Iraq war and the only one AFIK who still does. Even the face of the appalling intelligence regarding WMD's she still barks on about how they did exist. Going as far as to write the following for her online blog.

http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=502

If this doesn't convince you of this bats mental state I don't know what will. Most of her blog is re-prints of her Daily Heil articles. But not this. This is a piece of speculation so totally insane that not even the Mail would print it. Says it all I think.

Anyway for her I have something special in mind.

George Spiggott wrote:

dietrich wrote:I'm not saying it is racially biased, I don't think it is. But, I'm surprised the liberals aren't screaming about it being racially biased.

Damn them, they've tricked you again haven't they, those damn tricky liberals. What kind of world do we live in where the word liberal is used as a derogatory term?
I think you need a new word, or a new outlook on life, or both.

How about, "I'm surprised that the whiney-tree-hugging-hippie-make-love-not-war clowns who make ridiculous arguements to draw attention to themselves, while trying to bully their views on others, aren't screaming about it being racially biased." I did not mean 'liberal' as deragatory. I meant it to generally describe the left-wing-ACLU members in the US. Just as I'd call the right-wing-whackos something like the conservatives. In the US, the political left is generally called the Liberals and the political right are Conservatives.

generalgrog wrote:Not that I approve of Michael Savage, but barring him from entering the UK is rediculous. Why not add Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill Maher, or Al Franken to the list.

I don't care if they go to the UK or not, I just hope they leave the US. Or at least stop talking.

Which is a shame, there's a lot of Brits I wish were banned from the UK (i.e. the BNP and 90% of anyone on an Estate )

UK has the mega class... basically the royalty from all the way on down the line. It's really tough to make it in that country if you don't come fro the right family...

G

Typeline wrote:I think they probably banned Michael Savage because his radio program is just brutally unentertaining. But then again, which one of those guy's radio shows isn't exactly the same then?

Me hating political talk radio now a days aside, whatever happened to governments killing people they didn't like? Seriously, they also kept their mouths shut about what they didn't like about them, just killed them. No need to justify anything. Maybe they are asking for a little vigilantism.

if people like Michael Savage, Rush and the likes are "brutally unentertaining" then how come thier audiance's keep growing???