SCOTLAND JAILS POLITICAL PRISONERS.

Another guest article from my frequent contributor Mia who I am going to offer a regular column as the quality and depth of argument in the articles more than justifies it.

“Craig Murray is not a criminal. He is in prison because a judge uniquely claimed his journalism was in contempt of a criminal case under an arcane provision of Scottish law”

Maybe the judge who thought treating this elderly man, who we all know is no danger to society, worse than a real criminal would be seen by the people of Scotland as delivering justice rather than being seen as abusing one’s position of power and trust, could tell us if the word arcane has the same practical meaning in her court as the word obsolete.

The claim that the force of the law should fall harder on bloggers, and particularly pro-indy ones, than unionist mainstream paper publications could be interpreted not only as inconsistent and blatantly discriminatory, but actually as frivolous and lame.

I am sure I am not the only one who for the life of me could not figure out who the individuals were from Mr Murray’s satire despite reading it several times. But this does no longer come as a surprise. It is no longer a surprise because, after some reporters happily released names and the COPFS helped with the jigsaw by diligently demanding the withdrawal of paragraphs already in the public domain, it transpires that such satire piece could only help anyone to identify anything if they already knew who they were, which the public al large did not know until the reporters and COPFS acted.

To a person uneducated in law like myself, but interested in facts, evidence and justice, this kind of flawed reasoning and dodgy logic acrobatics to use jigsaw identification as an excuse to deliver a conviction, seems at the very least incredibly lame. At worst defective and vindictive.

For a person not educated in the justice-defying labyrinths of law recently pursued with enthusiasm by some judges and prosecutors in Scotland, that weird logic was totally unconvincing and gave the whole thing a funny tinge. This prompts one to wonder if the new strategy used in Scots courts to ensure a conviction of some inconvenient people is to decide already before hand on serving the conviction. Once that decision has been made, then the whole charade of performance in the court is perhaps just a matter of working backwards the logic, no matter how obsolete, frivolous, weak, lame or defective, in order to justify to the eyes of the public the conviction. The idea that the logical and impartial analysis of the evidence is what leads to a conviction because the basic assumption is that accused are innocent until proven guilty, seems, since Lady Dorrian’s infamous and gravity defying acrobatics logic, a thing that only happens in the unionist press, just like Nicola Sturgeon’s and Pete Wishart’s fervent commitment to deliver independence and to protect Scotland’s powers and assets.

“Whereas King James VII …. did exercise that power … to the violation of the laws and liberties of the kingdom. By causing pursue and forfeit several persons upon stretches of old and obsolete laws, upon frivolous and weak pretences, upon lame and defective probations”

That is what the Claim of Right 1689 says. Let’s not forget that this claim of right is still extant and, not only is the main pillar of the treaty of union, it is also the reason why the crowns of Scotland and England remain under the same monarch.

Who is responsible for the prosecution of crime in Scotland? Isn’t it that the Crown office?

In the name of whom do the courts in Scotland deliver their verdicts? Isn’t it the Crown too?

So who should be held responsible for the use in a Scottish court of an obsolete law, upon frivolous and weak pretences, upon lame and defective probations, to convict an supporter of independence of an alleged crime when the real culprits of that crime one of them being the Crown Office as part of the COPFS itself, remain unprosecuted?

Could this, under the right light, not be interpreted as yet another abuse of power by the crown and a violation of laws and liberties of the Kingdom of Scotland, one of those being the claim of right itself?

Is our claim of right 1689 being systematically violated?

How can alleged Scottish nationalist MPs and MSPs simply sit, watch this abuse and do nothing?
What is it exactly that these people are doing if they are not even prepared to defend Scotland’s rights?

What happened to the legal body in Scotland? Did they forget why they study law in the first place? At what point was the aim of delivering justice and being perceived to deliver justice lost because the use of the courts as a weapon to send inconvenient independence supporters to jail by the crown office became more pressing?

Is there any lawyer or Judge in Scotland that still has any respect left for Scotland’s Claim of Right 1689 and for the adherence by the Kingdom of England to each and every article of the treaty of union?

MY COMMENTS

Freedom of speech is a right that must be defended at all costs. Without it there is no democracy. Without it potential risks of wrongful conviction are multiplied many times over. The judgement in this trial is unique. A virtually unheard of archaic law, that required mystifying ”interpretation” by the judge, so mystifying it is incapable of verbal explanation was used to convict a former British Ambassador. What followed was equally outrageous, a man who represented no threat to the public was jailed for eight months, for providing, according to the Crown Office, some ”jigsaw identification” that MIGHT have enabled others to identify the ”witnesses”, many might think ”perjurers” who took part in the trial of former First Minister Alex Salmond. Equally amazingly the judge required to announce a new status for mainstream journalists who work for the millionaire press that allows them far greater leniency than the judge was prepared to extend to Mr Murray, a mere blogger but whose international reach and blog audience can compare favourably with some mainstream publications in Scotland. Her sentence also exceeded that already passed on an individual who deliberately and intentionally named some of those witnesses directly involved. THIS WEEK THOUSANDS OF FOREIGN LEADERS AND DELEGATES ARE IN SCOTLAND FOR COP26. I HOPE NONE LEAVE WITHOUT HEARING ABOUT CRAIG MURRAY AND HIS DISGRACEFUL AND VINDICTIVE PROSECUTION.

I am, as always

Yours for Scotland

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