REALLY..JURY FREE TRIALS?

I said I wasn’t going to publish anything before Christmas unless something serious happened. This is it!

IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING IN SCOTLAND

What is going on is unbelievable. Scotland’s new Lord Advocate, newly appointed by Nicola Sturgeon weighs in on ending the right to a jury trial in the event you are accused of a serious crime. Like a sexual crime. 

This a country where the First Minister is still fizzing about a jury who tossed out the allegations of many of her supporters in a trial where the evidence, let’s be generous, varied from impossible in the case of Miss H, to the absolutely ridiculously ludicrous and trivial in most of the rest.

In a country where the following Parliamentary Inquiry was notable for the exclusion and redaction of evidence to protect the First Minister, a farce where civil servants in the Scottish Government were overcome with an epidemic of severe memory loss, a condition that also affected the First Minister no less than FIFTY TIMES in the course of her giving her evidence. A condition that repeatedly involved civil servants being called again to refute and adjust their previously sworn evidence as it became absolutely obvious the previously sworn evidence could not possibly be true. This after the Scottish Government had spent many thousands of pounds on coaching their witnesses.

What sort of example is it to the public to have a First Minister implying the jury got it wrong?

This First Minister is a dangerous woman when her rule is spurned. How dare they? 

So along with Lady Dorrian, the judge in the Salmond Trial, another lady spurned of opportunity by the jury’s verdicts, who is already heading up a committee examining the idea of removing juries from such trials, we now have the newly appointed Lord Advocate pushing the idea as well. 

Where is the rest of the legal community? Apart from a few notable exceptions very little is said. My friends in the legal profession tell me the view is overwhelmingly against any move to remove juries. They believe it is a crucial safety valve to prevent oppressive state power. They also believe it would spread quickly from just sexual cases and that once the precedent was established would be liable to being introduced as a quicker and less expensive form of Justice. Advocates for the move argue it would guarantee “higher rates of conviction” How long before judges are given quotas of guilty verdicts to fulfill?

I am now regularly meeting strong Independence supporters who openly say they have no wish to live in an Independent Scotland if the current Scottish Government and leadership are in any place near to power. I even read today a blogger suggesting it will not be long before people will be looking to England for protection against this fascist Scottish Government. How ridiculous and dangerous is that?

Now I have given up on Nicola Sturgeon and her nodding dogs in Government. She has gone rogue and seems to spend her days seeking new ways to alienate Independence supporters. She must know the giant turn off to Independence her Government and “leadership” has become. She seems badly out of touch but surely not to that extent.

My question about this is not to her. She is way by salvation. My question is to the rest of the SNP. JUST WHAT MORE ARE YOU GOING TO TOLERATE? Your “loyalty” is being used against you. When was the last time Nicola Sturgeon did something, or introduced legislation that the PARTY VOTED FOR?

Instead you are getting the Hate Crime legislation, GRA, jury free trials, sex surveys of minors, moves that are decimating the unity of YES supporters. Ask yourself how many Party Members ever voted for any of that?

We are now involved in trying to save INDEPENDENCE from the very people we have repeatedly voted into office to deliver it. How ridiculous is that and what are ordinary SNP MEMBERS GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Do you want your children and grandchildren to accuse you of being responsible for fascist government in Scotland? IT IS MOVING CLOSER AND PICKING UP PACE EVERY DAY. WE ARE ALL IN DANGER. 

I am, as always

Yours for Scotland.

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