 Prosecuting Tony Blair and others
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The Current Position
Regina -v- the Chief Magistrate (Bow Street Court)
ex parte Manson
The criminal prosecution process
The first stage is the "laying of an information" before a magistrate, this
is simply the legal term of art for the formal documentary procedure whereby a
magistrate with competent juridiction is "informed" of an accusation of criminal
conduct by an informant. The Informant thereby seeks the issue of a
summons to the accused person(s), or possibly a warrant for their
arrest if that is deemed appropriate.
If the summons issues then, where the offence is of a sufficiently
serious nature as to be triable only in the Crown Court before a judge
and jury ( "indictable only offence"), it is to compel the accused, then
termed the "defendant", to appear before a hearing in the magistraes'
court to determine if they should be committed for a trial on
indictment before the Crown Court.
If the charge(s) are so commited to trial the informant, then the
"prosecutor", must draft a Bill of Indictment (by which the
Defendant is then Indicted), and that Bill and that Defendant are then
subsequently "arraigned" before the Crown Court, by way of a pre-trial
hearing, only at which time the Defendant must then make their plea to
it.
Only after all of this procedure has been undertaken is the case for the
prosecution then put at a subsequent trial, and the Defendant in turn then put
to their defence, if a sufficient case be presented. Of course, should the jury
thereafter return a verdict of guilty the judge must pass sentence
wherby the defendant then stands convicted.
So the reader can then appreciate that the stage I am at in the crimminal
prosecution process, having merely 'laid the information' before the
magistrates, and having now been formally refuse the summons which I seek is
perhaps equivalent to saying that I am approaching the starting gate, yet to be
put under orders.
The difference in this case
However, that said, I am accusing the highest official of the state, Her
Majesty's first minister of the Government, as well as two of Her Principal
Secretaries of State, of having committed the most heinous and grave of all
crimes under the customary international humanitarian laws of the nations
comprising the civilised world, a war of aggression, a crime against global
peace. Never in the centuries of the history of this nation state has any Court
ever even come close to the issue of a summons to its Prime Minister, while in
office, to answer to any criminal charge; let alone to issue such a judicial
document, to answer to the charge of a crime of such a magnitude. Were it to do
so it would therefore in and of itself alone, be an act of such judicial novelty
and affirmation of the principle of the rule of law, that, candidly, it would by
and of itself shake the very foundations of the state.
That said let us not forget that in this country a King was once tried for
treason and his head removed from its shoulders, leading thereafter to the
establishment of a republican commonwealth. So I suppose anything's possible !
But be in no doubt though, the first hurdle before me of obtaining the summonses
which I seek, is in practice so tall an obstacle, that at present it is
impossible to conceive, let alone perceive, anything of the course which may lie
beyond it.
Where things stand now.
I have now received a letter back from the Bow Street Magistrates' Court, to
which my informations were transferred from Horseferry Road, enclosing a
statement of the judgement of Mr Tim Workman , who holds the title
of the Cheif London Magistrate (Senior District Judge). He states therein " I
am not satisfied that there is at present an international crime of waging a war
of aggression. "
It is instructive to compare that judgement with that of the Nuremberg
Tribual on the Trial of the Major German War Criminals, and which stated in 1946
that, "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an
international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from
other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the
whole."
I shall shortly be lodging my application to the Administrative Court of the
Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, seeking the leave of that
court to move for a judicial review of Judge Workman's decision, on the
principal basis that it was made on a mistaken view of the law. Ultimately I
shall be seeking an order of that Court requiring Judge Workman to issue the
summonses I seek, or in the alternative at the least to re-open the
determination of my informations, in light of their directions on the law, with
a view to whether the summonses should issue.
Initially, however, I shall most probably be seeking an order for a
preliminary 'leave hearing' before a divisional court, comprising of at least
two judges, to consider the following general point of public importance:
" Where a criminal offence exists, under well established customary
international law, complete with a proven personal liability for individuals who
commit it ; can the law of the offence, complete with the individual liability,
be adopted into and thereby form a part of the common law of this country, or
can the creation of such a criminal offence only ever be achieved by means of
incorporation by way of statute ? "
If an order is granted by an initial "leave judge" to permit such a
preliminary hearing that in and of itself will be a major victory and the
sunsequent leave hearing itself will be the real forum wherein the issue will be
given a full airing. A determination of the law on an application for a summons
to the sitting Prime Minister for the commission of "the supreme crime" under
international law ? The trial of the century ?
Keep watching this space . . .
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