Britain: First Trial Without Jury Approved
June 18th, 2009Via: BBC:
The Court of Appeal has ruled that a criminal trial can take place at Crown Court without a jury for the first time in England and Wales.
The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, made legal history by agreeing to allow the trial to be heard by a judge alone.
It is the first time the power has been used since it came into force in 2007.
The case concerns four men accused of an armed robbery at Heathrow Airport in 2004. The judge said jury “tampering” was a “very significant” danger.
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I wonder if they’ll be using the original Star Chamber at Westminster…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber
“The Star Chamber (Latin camera stellata) was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641… (snip) …the court was [originally] set up to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against prominent people, those so powerful that ordinary courts could never convict them of their crimes… (snip) …in modern usage, legal or administrative bodies with strict, arbitrary rulings and secretive proceedings are sometimes called, metaphorically or poetically, star chambers. This is a pejorative term and intended to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the proceedings.”
…or perhaps they’ve constructed stately new high-tech, five-sided digs nested deep within the bowels of the state panopticon, surrounded by a comprehensive & multi-layered web of the latest biometric surveillance technologies? =)
Indeed!
Further excerpts from the Wikipedia article cited above:
“The power of the Court of Star Chamber grew considerably under the House of Stuart, and by the time of King Charles I, it had become synonymous with misuse and abuse of power by the King and his circle. King James I and his son Charles used the court to examine cases of sedition, which meant that the court could be used to suppress opposition to royal policies. …. The excesses of the Star Chamber under King Charles I, including the case of John Lilburne, constituted one of the rallying cries for those who eventually executed King Charles.”
Hope they’ve read their history; or maybe they’re confident that they can co-opt, buy or neutralize any would-be Oliver Cromwells.
@Miraculix: Funny, ha-ha, only not.
Anyway, back to sleep. And, back to Tesco’s, for a stab-proof kitchen knife for a mere GBP 40-50!
Surprise, surprise. They were doing this in Northern Ireland since 1972. Test it out on the Paddies & wogs first, the British MO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplock_courts
“The Diplock courts were a type of court established by the Government in Northern Ireland in 1972, in an attempt to overcome widespread jury intimidation associated with the Troubles. The right to trial by jury was suspended for certain “scheduled offences” and the court consisted of a single judge. The courts were abolished in 2007[1].”
Note how the Diplocks were abolished in 2007 (the same year that the new powers came into effect).
God, how they laugh.