'Legal aid is not for foreigners to fight cases..'

[ClaphamGT3]

Scuffers said:

PlankWithANailIn said:

We signed the convention and thus must stick by it, and this means paying the price when its rules are broken. If our Government does not want to be bound to these rules then it should withdraw from the convention not try to sweep things under the carpet. However it can not do this as the consequences would be huge we would be thrown out of most world bodies for a start.

What you are suggesting is so simplistic I can only assume you to be a very young man and very trusting to boot..a sort of "Our guys are good theirs bad so we should turn a blind eye" even if that means we allow one of our Soldiers to go on a murderous rampage...in your name...with your blessing...takes on a whole new meaning to keyboard warrior.

A few years ago I read two World war books by Anthony Beaver, one "Stalingrad" was amazing in it's story of human struggle, brutality an heroism. The other was "Berlin" and it was basically sickening due to the pure criminality, thuggish and evil depicted. The stories of the allies at the same time makes them seem like saints in comparison and I know which side of history I would like to be on.

as usual on PH, you did not actually read what I posted.

what I said was that they should not be dragged infront of a civilian court (especially one not even in the same country as the alleged offence)

we have managed for hundreds of years to deal with military crimes within the military context, yet now your suggesting that's impossible?

They aren't tried in Civilian Courts, they are tried at the Court Martial under the terms of The Armed Forces Act 2006, as was Sgt Alex Blackman, to whom I assume you were referring in your post

[anonymous-user]

Tut! There is scuffers enjoying a good old ignorant rant, and you come along with your boring facts and ruin everything. Boo.

[Scuffers]

Breadvan72 said:

Tut! There is scuffers enjoying a good old ignorant rant, and you come along with your boring facts and ruin everything. Boo.

So what?

Whatever way you want to spin it from you comfortable safe office chair, your not the one in a war zone being shot at or blown up.

In my books, if they are the ones out there being shot at, we here have no right to second guess them.

More generally, the legal profession here seem to me to have lost sight of what they are there for.

[anonymous-user]

Your constant attempts to move the goalposts won't help you. In almost every post you have made on this thread you have said something crassly ill informed and ill thought through, been called out on it by someone, and then tried to change your position. You said that no soldier should be dragged through a civilian court, especially not one in a foreign country. It was pointed out to you that this does not happen. Soldiers are, on rare occasions, called before UK Courts Martial. I have the utmost regard for what soldiers do, and do not think that battlefield judgments should be second guessed in court rooms, but, because we are a lawful civilization, when the battle is over the rule of law returns.

I have the greatest sympathy for Sergeant Blackman and think that he was facing stresses and emotions that we can but guess at. I don't think that means that there should be no accountability for transgressions of the civilized norms by which our society lives, and for which our soldiers are sent to take such enormous risks and make such huge sacrifices. The Sergeant was judged by his professional peers, not by deskbound lawyers.

What is your personal, first hand basis for your opinions about the law and lawyers? They sound a tad Daily Mailish, but please tell us what you actually know. Hey, maybe you could even do some research before sounding off? Maybe a big ask, but if you try it once you may even find that the habit grows.

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 24th April 09:45

[10 Pence Short]

Sadly, the term 'fat cats' has been misapplied to lawyers for a very long time. As the traditional fat cats; bankers, city traders and CEOs (my understanding of people's use of the phrase, rather than my endorsement of it, btw) have come under fire since the 2008 crash, the bad feeling towards those professions have also smeared lawyers.

Even more alarming, rather than support the profession through this time, the government has sought to undermine it by taking advantage of public opinion and reducing the power of the legal system in both criminal and civil courts.

The government are quite happy for the public to lump together a £1.2m a year equity M&A partner with Slaughter & May and a £24k a year criminal barrister.

Saying a lawyer is a lawyer is a lawyer is no more accurate than believing your GP could be a brain surgeon or your dentist a vet, such is the breadth of the profession.

So, in my opinion, the government using public ignorance towards the profession and proliferation of hate against it to initiate removal of the freedoms that protect us, the Everyday Schmuck, from that government, is nothing short of a disgrace.

[Murph7355]

10 Pence Short said:

...

The government are quite happy for the public to lump together a £1.2m a year equity M&A partner with Slaughter & May and a £24k a year criminal barrister.

Saying a lawyer is a lawyer is a lawyer is no more accurate than believing your GP could be a brain surgeon or your dentist a vet, such is the breadth of the profession.
...

The government have been happy for the public to focus it's ire on anything to do with the banking profession. Including a lot of people on less than 24k per annum.

Some lawyers have done enough over time to smear their own profession (I suspect they breathed a collective sigh of relief when the lens moved to banking...) . It happens in all industries - good and bad eggs in them all.

The one thing they all have in common is that politicians are happy to stoke the general public up against them. Why? Because it deflects attention away from the biggest, most hypocritical bunch of parasites in the country. Politicians.

[ClaphamGT3]

Scuffers said:

Breadvan72 said:

Tut! There is scuffers enjoying a good old ignorant rant, and you come along with your boring facts and ruin everything. Boo.

So what?

Whatever way you want to spin it from you comfortable safe office chair, your not the one in a war zone being shot at or blown up.

In my books, if they are the ones out there being shot at, we here have no right to second guess them.

More generally, the legal profession here seem to me to have lost sight of what they are there for.

Fortunately, your book counts for nada in the administration of military justice.

If, however, it puts your mind at rest, the Court Martial is presided over by a judge advocate who, as well as being a lawyer, will be a commissioned officer in the armed forces and the role of the jury will be discharged by a board, comprising, IIRC, between three and seven commissioned officers/SNCOs. Counsel for the prosecution and, if desired, the defence will be commissioned officers from the JAG Corps.

By the way, in my experience, the overwhelming majority of people in the Armed Forces are rather proud of the fact that they do things lawfully. It's all about professionalism. They are somewhat disdainful of people who hold the opinion that you do.

[anonymous-user]

Indeed. The military jury is made up of experienced personnel who know what it is to do the job that the accused soldier does. Scuffers and similar PH whyohwhyohwhy-ists may choose to believe that it's all a put up job by some bunch of lawyers remote from the pointy end of things, but the reality is once again at odds with Scuffers' strongly expressed but factually baseless opinions.

[anonymous-user]

Here are some general questions for the "everything is broken" crew.

In a society as old as ours that has had stable government for as long as it has, which of these is more likely?

(1) Anything that is important is either completely gash and disorganised or is a slick conspiracy of self interested suits out to do down Joe Ordinary.

OR

(2) Most things that are important are, with exceptions, well ordered and follow roughly the sort of sensible lines that you might design if you were starting from scratch.


Try another pairing. Which of these two is more likely to be true?

(1) The police, legal, penal and probation systems are run by people who don't really care about crime and criminals but seek to do down Joe Ordinary whenever they can.

OR

(2) The police, legal, penal and probation systems are run by people most of whom are trying to do their best for the public interest in very complex situations with not enough resources.


Try again. Modern life and Government are:-


(1) Simple, with easy fixes.

OR

(2) Complex, with no easy fixes.


These are deliberately binary pairings, and of course most things are somewhere on a spectrum from grey to grey. I am not saying that everything is rosy, or that we do not need reforms, or that however things have been done up to now must be how they are to be done from now on. My point is that the crude world view of the typical pub expert on everything is, well, crude. Don't those of you who adopt the why oh why oh why line ever feel any curiosity to go and find out how stuff actually is?

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 24th April 13:30

[carinaman]

This chap doesn't seem to be much of fan of Grayling:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04d4cpv

Legal Aid helps a Royal Marine after the police and the CPS failed to look at the evidence:

http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Marine-gunne...

So courts and the ability to get justice via the courts is becoming more difficult and expensive but the police and CPS can find non cases to bung them up with?