Jude Collins

Tuesday 12 March 2013

Peter and Sammy vs The Judges




Here’s an interesting question for a cold Tuesday morning: why did Peter and Sammy get so het-up about judges this past while? You know what I’m talking about - the way flag protestors didn’t get bail and a charged republican got jail. Why was it such an important item for them to raise?

Well, it could have been because they want judges to be held more accountable for their decisions. This seems to me reasonable - there is an awful lot of tomfoolery connected with the judiciary here and in Britain. In a blog a while back, I questioned the reasoning behind a judicial decision some year ago and I got responses demanding to see my law degree, did I think I knew better than the judge in question, what kind of a big-head was I? And I haven’t even mentioned those daft wigs and robes they wear. (Yes, yes, Virginia, just like cardinals, except cardinals have a small little cap and judges have a very big wig.) So I’m with Sammy and Peter on the need for openness and the explanation of judgements. 

But why are Peter and Sammy hot and bothered now? After all, the juryless Diplock courts were a feature of life here for decades (tell me they’ve abolished them, please) and yet I don’t remember Peter or Sammy being critical of a judiciary which dispensed with a jury and did the finding guilty/not guilty (but mainly guilty) themselves. The reason for the present DUP agitation can be summed up in two words: East Belfast.


That’s the seat the Alliance took from Peter Robinson and that’s the seat he must, on peril of his political life, win back next time. So if getting annoyed with a judge over not granting bail to flag protestors is necessary in order to reassure a section of loyalism that the DUP is their bestest friend, then that’s what they’ll do. Perhaps Peter and Sammy would like to get a bit more glasnost into the judicial system. But you can bet your life savings that they would far prefer to win that pesky seat back again. 

5 comments:

  1. ... unfortunately Peters mention of the HET gives it a further, even more sinister twist. Putting pressure and spotlights on the judiciary in the run up to some of NI's favourite gangsters being superbly grassed up...

    It will surely be an interesting year. Good job that loyalist camels back is already broken, I sense more than a straw might yet fall on it, much more humane that it's already away to see the baby Jesus.

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  2. From what L C J Morgan said in his B B C interview yesterday,I suspect he would agree with you on the need for openness and explanation of judgements.If you visit Courts&Tribunals(N I)you can access many of the major High Court judgements.You may feel that there is an element of pomposity about the judiciary and no doubt some will not underestimate thir own importance .But overall I think they should be supported in standing up to the likes of Peter and Sammy.

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  3. What to do with Unionists these days,if it isn't Taig police officers beating them off the streets then it's that uppity Chief Justice Morgan from Derry and former St Columb's College boy that has it in for them.No wonder they are again circling the wagons with their Laager mentality trying to form a single unionist party to keep the Taigs out at all cost,they must feel like the ground is shifting underneath them.Personally I think in the coming months that Unionism may be a bigger threat to the Agreement than all the dissident groups put together.

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    1. Will the international community stand for it..?

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    2. Anon[9.09] Unionist parties have a severe dose of a superiority complex which is founded on very little evidence of merit. The whole business of parachuting candidates into tight consstituencies is [apparently unknown to the DUP/uup], self defeating as it alerts nationalists normally solid behind the smaller party share in a given seat, to lend their vote to the other party just to be thran. How they must have enjoyed in F/ST the face of Foster changing from delight at the result she thought she had, compared to her priceless gurn when it turned out the other way, as Gildernew took the seat last time by only four votes. This abortion amendment in stormont wasn't really about religious digma for unionist politicians, but simply control freakery as they attempt to keep this place showing a Protestant face to the world [as if the world gave a damn]. That Norn iron centenary party in 2021 is going to be a damp squib as they see the census reslutls beforehand. [madraj55]

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