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Thursday 23 February 2012

Three Cheers for John Hemming MP

Monday, 21st March 2011

Come the revolution, you're supposed to hang the lawyers first. Which is fine. But it might be better to start with the judges. Specifically those that are happy to grant injunctions that prevent members of the public from raising matters of concern with their local MP. I ken that commonsense need not be compatible with jurisprudence but this oversteps the mark by some considerable distance. It is outrageous and so outlandish that one wonders how it can actually happen. But happen it does and, it turns out, more frequently than you might think and certainly more often than you're supposed to know.

So three cheers for John Hemming*, MP for Birmingham Yardley, for his speech to a Westminster Hall debate last week. The whole debate is worth your time and the transcript can be found here. The choice cuts include:

To say, “We will remove your child, because you had the effrontery to raise your concerns about process with your Member of Parliament” is a dreadful thing to do. Parliament should not tolerate that, because it undermines the actions of Parliament.

[...] I will now look in more detail at Andrew France's case. I have some of the documentation with me, including a county court order-for proceedings that have now completely ended, so it is a public document, and there is no issue of privilege. The document is there in the courts. In the recitals, it states:

"upon the first and second Respondents agreeing that they will make no further disclosure in respect of this matter to any third party, including in particular the media and John Hemmings MP."

It is somewhat surprising that I am such a threat to the system that so much effort will go into stopping one of my constituents speaking to me. He was wrongly imprisoned on a made-up allegation of rape, so he went through a serious process. He won his criminal appeal but he complained about a social worker in the process, so the authorities decided to start proceedings in the family courts. Luckily, an excellent judge junked it in the bin, because it was transparently such nonsense, and everything ran smoothly for the family. However, my constituent was under no illusion that had he not   agreed to those recitals in the court order, the council would have taken action - he was told - which would have been to apply for a care order taking his four-year-old daughter into care.

Mr Bacon: For the benefit of the House, can my hon. Friend clarify, in case anyone did not notice? Is he saying that a court order was made prohibiting a constituent from talking to him as a Member of Parliament?

John Hemming: Exactly. The court order is slightly different from that, because it is in the recitals. Some court orders prohibit people from talking to Members of Parliament, but, because it is in the recitals, it implies an agreement. It is slightly more complex, but, in essence, a lot of pressure was placed on him to agree not to talk to me. The threat was that, if he talked to me, they would apply to take his child into care. A note from his barrister, June Williams, said:

"All the advocates stressed to me the danger of Father having any contact with John Hemmings MP [...] and had been heavily criticised by the Court of Appeal about his involvement in cases. The collective view was that he would do more harm than good. Mr Grove confirmed that he advised Mother not to contact the media again and she confirmed that she would not. I spoke to Father about this, as the parties had prepared the recital to the order about the parents not contacting the media or John Hemming [...] or any third party about this case. Father was very defensive at first and said 'No' and that effectively this was a gagging order," which, of course, it is.

[...] The essence of it is that he has no real choice. If he does not agree to it, the local council, of which I used to be deputy leader, would take action to take his child into care.

On the processes of councils, it is interesting that I have discovered that their senior management and councillors have no knowledge of what is really going on in social services departments throughout the country on a day-to-day basis. There is no real scrutiny in the councils, and the fact that elected officials are in charge of them does not result in any proper scrutiny.

That is one example where it is obvious that action was wrongly taken to bully somebody into agreeing not to contact me.

[In another case, this time involving someone complaining that the water tanks on passenger ships could be exposed to toxins] ... The person in question could actually be jailed for telling his MP that he had been in court case No. 773. What is so sensitive about that? In practice, even family court proceedings are not that confidential. I think this case was in the Commercial and Admiralty court. My first question is not just how the hell this could happen - I apologise for the non-parliamentary language, Mr Bone. How does this happen? How many more of these cases are there? How many secret cases do we have in this country, with people being banned from even saying that the case exists?

[...] This is not the sort of thing that should happen. This is not about transparency and accountability, but about using lots of money. We come back to Magna Carta and somebody with a lot of money. We are talking about various companies with lots of money gagging some poor individual. Where is the equality of arms in that? Where is the idea that we will not sell justice? The courts may not be selling justice, but the legal process as a whole is not really very balanced if this is the sort of thing that goes on.

[...]I am not the only one having problems. When I talk to colleagues of all parties, they all find similar problems with the aggressive way in which apparatchiks of the state attempt to ban constituents from talking to MPs. We have judges creating situations where it is made an imprisonable offence to tell an MP that a case exists. I do not think that is right, transparent or accountable.

Do read the whole thing. It is extraordinary, disgraceful and shaming. I can understand why social services want to bully and silence people; what seems inexplicable is the willingness of judges to endorse this approach and preserve the right of the faceless state to intimidate the citizenry and, still worse, make it a criminal offence to even complain about your treatment by the courts.

It's a great shame no-one bothers to report on parliament these days because, actually, lots of ineresting things happen there. Perhaps editors no longer have the manpower to staff all the committee rooms and so on but were I editing a newspaper I'd hire a couple of reporters and ask them just to read Hansard. Every day. There are plenty of stories to be harvested from those pages.

In the meantime, hurrah for the blogosphere where the likes of Anna Raccoon actually bother to read Hansard and alert the rest of us to what's actually happening. An army of laptops can pick up where the press left off and bring these disgraces to the wider audience they merit.

Finally, I'd also observe that anyone reading the transcript of this debate might be encouraged by the diligence shown by members of parliament, not to mention the work they do for their constituents. It's cheap and easy to treat MPs as spivs and chancers and lord knows frm time to time we all succumb to the temptation to do so but, actually, as this debate and the televised proceedings of many a select committee demonstrate, there's a quiet decency to much of their work too and a dogged willingness to do the best they can for their constituents and the institution in which they are privileged to sit.

*An obvious candidate for Backbencher of the Year at the next edition of the Spectator's Parliamentary Awards.

[Thanks to RK]

Filed under: Lawyers (12 more articles) , Parliament (234 more articles) , Westminster (182 more articles)

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Rhoda Klapp

March 21st, 2011 2:15pm Report this comment

And thank you for giving this an airing.

Commentator

March 21st, 2011 4:21pm Report this comment

Alex, thank you for giving this the prominence that it deserves. I used to think that power without responsibility (or indeed accountability) was the prerogative of the whore but in recent years it seems to have become the prerogative of our increasingly arrogant and self-aggrandising judiciary. In fact saying that it is to do a disservice to whores who appear to provide a valued service for relatively small amounts of cash....not something that can be said of many lawyers and especially the Family Division of the High Court.

Stephen Hoffman

March 21st, 2011 4:35pm Report this comment

This highlights a shocking abuse of power by the state.

John Hemming will be speaking to The Freedom Association's free spirits event tonight from 6pm -7pm,at the Old Star Pub opposite St James Tube Station, on exactly this issue. All people in the London area, who are free to attend, are welcome.

Details about the event are here:http://www.tfa.net/the_freedom_association/johnhemming.html#tp

Stephen Hoffman

Baron

March 21st, 2011 5:31pm Report this comment

I would double the three cheers shout, it beggars belief it can happen. Why do we bother to improve the voting system to get a better lot into the House when a judge could act in this manner? Is anyone looking into it?

David Booth

March 21st, 2011 6:18pm Report this comment

Keep up the good work Mr Massie, first class article.
Court proceedings that are held in secret are often a cover for powerful organisations and powerful people to cover their incompetence and dodgy deeds.
All judicial proceeding should be in open court (apart from rare cases of national security) to be seen and judged by people.
Courts only derive their power from the will and acquiescence of the people and this goodwill should not be abused by the judges and rich powerful individuals.

andrew kerins

March 21st, 2011 6:58pm Report this comment

A disturbing side-issue here is that 'human rights' lawyers appear entirely indifferent.

Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley

March 21st, 2011 7:17pm Report this comment

I can't be bothered to read the whole thing but it certainly does seem unfair if it's true that the privilege pertaining to whomever one has elected can be misunderstood in such a way it can effectively over-ride our most basic of decent democratic standards in a Parliamentary democracy - namely the responsibility every citizen has to fully inform Parliament via their M.P about things they are concerned about and/or especially things we can tell may not be safely accounted for in any other place.

Citizens are not stupid these days.It's very important we are all vigilant this side of the so-called credit crunch. These are testing times but let's not be scared. Even the Chairman of the FSA points out we need to vigilant with regard to stability. Regulatory arbitrage of any kind, which in my view is surely what any abuse of Parliamentary privilege may amount to - is just too easy and quick a fix to make during a difficult situation. We should all be able to raise our concerns openly and according to the seven principles of public life whenever important improvements can be made.

Will Rees

March 21st, 2011 8:24pm Report this comment

Alternatively watch the video
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=7854&player=windowsmedia and get mildly depressed. At those whom attended realized it was important. Well done for covering the family court side of it, Mail and Telegrapgh didn't and google says no other MSM covered it, and well done Anna Racoon, I would cheer John Hemming but I call that just doing his job, like I said look at the video, what an empty room. On the plus side that does provide the perfect excuse to see if it has come to attention of your MP

Mrs.J Hyde-Hartley

March 22nd, 2011 1:05am Report this comment

Thanks, Will Rees for the link. In my view it provides some valuable direct feedback where others may not be able to help. Isn't Parliament a wonderful place?

Rue de la Loi

March 22nd, 2011 10:06am Report this comment

The failure by the MSM to cover this, surely one of the most important news stories of the year, is pretty depressing.

Further to Andrew Kerins, it is striking indeed that a judiciary obsessed with promoting the individual "human rights" of the feckless and even the treasonable over those of the wider society that very often did not invite those individuals to come and live here, is nevertheless ready to endorse the complete subjugation of individuals' rights to the expediencies of the State or powerful corporations.

The Superior Courts Act 1981 permits the High Court to grant injunctions "where it appears to the court to be just and convenient to do so", which gives courts a wide latitude that is clearly being abused. Mr Hemming would deserve a few more cheers if the judges in question were to be named, followed by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament for their removal from office.

Ron Graves

March 22nd, 2011 6:17pm Report this comment

"It's cheap and easy to treat MPs as spivs and chancers and lord knows frm time to time we all succumb to the temptation to do so but, actually, as this debate and the televised proceedings of many a select committee demonstrate, there's a quiet decency to much of their work too and a dogged willingness to do the best they can for their constituents and the institution in which they are privileged to sit."

I quite agree - how many such people do you find in the cabinet, though?

Anajinn

March 24th, 2011 7:09am Report this comment

When you read the debate, make sure you read about the fraudulent transfer of land titles that Mr. Hemming mentions. This was done when a woman was fraudulently put under the Court of Protection. When fighting for a police investigation, she spoke out publicly and was imprisoned for it. She has been prevented, by injuction, from speaking to her MP. Please reread that because crime is taking place, using the Court of Protection as a tool for racketeering. http://www.lincs.police.uk/News-Centre/News-Releases/13-01-2011-Money-Laundering-Court-Result.html Injunctions have been used to silence victims of white collar crime.

john scott

May 23rd, 2011 8:19pm Report this comment

I salute you for bringing some common sense
to this issue. Someone has to help these judges from their ivory towers, and remind them and the MP's that they are there to serve the people and reflect their opinions.money power and fame should never seperate you from truth!!

Sabine K McNeill

May 24th, 2011 2:37pm Report this comment

HURRAY, dear Alex Massie,

I've quoted you on http://victims-unite.net, in my attempt to get the secrecy in family courts lifted. See http://bit.ly/kExfF1

Paul Randle-Jolliffe

May 29th, 2011 4:25pm Report this comment

Of course this is Criminal Harassment by the COURTS! under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 as amended by s125 Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005. The Protection from Harassment Act came into force on 16th June 1997, Sections 3(3) to 3(9 ) came into force on 1st September 1998, Section 7(3A) came into force on 1st August 2001 and ss1(1A), 3A and 7(5) came into force on 1st July 1 2005.

s1 Prohibition of harassment.

(1) A person must not pursue a course of conduct-
(a) which amounts to harassment of another, and
(b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.
(1A) A person must not pursue a course of conduct -
(a) which involves harassment of two or more persons, and
(b) which he knows or ought to know involves harassment of those persons, and
(c) by which he intends to persuade any person (whether or not one of those mentioned above)-
(i) not to do something that he is entitled or required to do, or
(ii) to do something that he is not under any obligation to do

ben

May 31st, 2011 2:46am Report this comment

This is the most important current issue. Well done John Hemming MP. The feedback system of the population scrutinizing the law and changing it through pressure on MP's has been broken. This feedback system is one of the fundamental processes that protects us against tyranny, alongside trial by jury and the supremacy of the law over the state. That's how important this is. In the case of the family courts this is especially true since trial by jury has been lost, and there is excessive privacy coupled with the fact that several types of judgement that can be handed down in secret such as adoption orders represent a life time sentence that can not be revoked even if an injustice is later found to have been committed.

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