On
this date, 11 September 2010, Judge Thomas Bingham died of cancer at the age of
76. I will post several things he did in his career to protect criminal rights
before giving my comments on him.
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Thomas Bingham
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INTERNET
SOURCE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bingham
He
was the first senior judge to back incorporation into English law of the European
Convention on Human Rights – which came about with the passing of
the Human Rights Act
1998.
In
2009, Bingham was involved with the UK Charity, Reprieve.
Bingham's
thoughts on this subject, in particular the banning of certain weapons in
international conflict, were covered by newspapers The Independent (Top
judge: 'use of drones intolerable') and the Daily Telegraph (Unmanned
drones could be banned, says senior judge).
Lord Bingham is a leading human rights jurist – in
the Belmarsh case, he led the law lords in holding that it was unlawful to
detain foreign terror suspects without charge.
Reprieve is privileged that Lord Bingham is willing
to apply his courage, astuteness and profound legal knowledge in the defence of
the human rights of prisoners from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
The greatest
judge of his era, he argued that judicial independence is essential to the
defence of human rights
These principles
did not stand alone, and effect also had to be given to the European Convention
on Human Rights, which took
account of the consensus embodied in the 1984 Convention Against Torture.
He was the first
senior judge to back incorporation into English law of the European Convention
on Human Rights, and he favoured the legalisation of cannabis: "It's
stupid," he said in an interview in the Spectator, "having a law which
isn't doing what it's there for."
In his new post,
his reforming streak was unrestrained. He pressed Jack Straw, home secretary
in the new Labour government of 1997, to abolish the mandatory life term for
murder and the key role for the home secretary in deciding release. With Harry
Woolf, now Lord Woolf, as master of the rolls, he argued for safe accommodation
for released paedophiles to make reoffending less likely and to protect them
from being hounded.
COMMENTS:
I
personally do not want Bingham as my Chief Justice in my country. I do not want
a judge that is so soft on crime, he had caused the deaths of many innocent
people in the country. He appears to be in favour of criminals more than the
good people of the country.
Coming
this 29 September, I will blog about 7 good judges. Glenn Beck was once quoted
in a Speech he gave at a Washington D.C rally on June 19, 2013:
“But the cause of human rights has been taken over by organizations who share little with the individuals who led the movement. Human rights was once a cry for justice. Now it is used as a threat. These organizations have become bullies and grotesque parodies of the principles they pretend to represent. They criticize free nations and spare the unfree.”
Edmund
Burke would agree to that:
European Court of Human Rights has forced Spain to free dozens of serial killers, pedophiles, murderers, rapists and terrorists. The commotion in the victims and civil society has been enormous. The freed by activist judges have a very high recidivism rate. I think that Americans are not aware of the bigotry and contempt for the rights of victims showing European judges. This should be a cause for reflection for lawyers of the victims, today foulbrood happens in Spain tomorrow could happen in USA.
ReplyDeleteA hug.
Fernando J. Pérez Madrid 23 OCT 2013 - 18:13 CET
ReplyDeletehttp://elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/23/inenglish/1382544644_264682.html?rel=rosEP
Following this week’s ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the so-called “Parot doctrine,” the Spanish High Court has received 36 petitions from ETA inmates either for release, or to have their penitentiary benefits recalculated.
The Parot doctrine was used by the Spanish government to control benefits for prisoners, by applying reductions to sentences for individual crimes rather than the 30-year maximum term limit, as laid out in the 1973 penal code. The decision of the ECHR in Strasbourg, however, means that the doctrine can no longer be applied.
On Friday, the 17 magistrates of the Criminal Section of the High Court will convene to study the petitions and discuss the guidelines for processing the cases. The panel will also consider two convicts in particular: Josefa Mercedes Ernaga, who was sentenced to 794 years in jail for her part in various attacks, including the 1987 Barcelona Hipercor supermarket bomb that killed 21 people; and Juan Manuel Píriz, who received 61 years for killing a former ETA member and has been incarcerated for 29 years.
The High Court has at least 37 cases of inmates affected by the Parot doctrine – which can also be applied to non-ETA inmates – on its desk, but these had been pending the outcome of Inés del Río’s appeal to the ECHR. Del Río was sentenced to nearly 4,000 years in jail for her part in a series of attacks carried out by ETA’s Madrid cell, which left 23 people dead. As a result of her appeal at the Strasbourg court, she was released from jail on Tuesday.
http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/23442/parot-doctrine-prisoners-released-fears-satanic-alcasser-schoolgirl-killer-could-be-next
ReplyDeleteBy: thinkSPAIN , Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Teens tortured so badly that forensics were 'distraught' at sight of the bodies
PARENTS of three teenage girls gang-raped, tortured and brutally murdered after hitch-hiking to a disco in 1992 fear the ECHR's verdict on the Parot Doctrine could mean their killer goes free.
Desirée Hernández Folch and Miriam García Íborra, both 14 and Antonia 'Toñi' Gómez Rodríguez, 15, went missing on Friday 13th in November 1992 when they were on their way to Coolor disco in Picassent (Valencia province), near their home village of Alcàsser, but never arrived.
Their murder by two strangers, described at the time as 'satanic', was the most brutal seen in Spain since the Civil War and extremely rare, given that the country's violent crime statistics have always been among the lowest in Europe and in nearly all cases, victims and killers know each other well.
And Miguel Ricart, now 44, may be another candidate for early release from jail as a result of the European Court of Human Rights having declared Spain is in breach of EU law by applying the Doctrine retroactively.
The Parot Doctrine means that where a prisoner accumulates early-release 'credits' through 'good behaviour' – such as one day deducted from their sentence in exchange for two days' work whilst in jail – it is applied to the actual sentence, not the custodial term the inmate will serve.
In Ricart's case, any early-release credit would be applied to his 170-year sentence, but now the Doctrine has been overturned, it will be deducted from the maximum of 30 years he can be expected to actually serve.
He is due out of jail in 10 years' time, but may walk free much earlier as a result of the ECHR verdict.
The surviving parents of the girls – Miriam's mother and Désirée's father both died soon after their daughters – say the Strasbourg verdict is 'painful' and 'the last thing they need'.
Tortured, mutilated and forced to walk into their own grave
As was common at the time and in particular among teens who went to Coolor, the young victims – who would now be aged 35 and 36 - decided to hitch-hike, having firstly stopped at the home of their friend Ester Díez whose bout of 'flu, the reason she chose not to accompany the others to the disco, probably saved her life.
Miriam is said to have telephoned home at around 20.00hrs and spoken to her mother Matilde, asking if her father could take the girls to Coolor – but Sra Íborra said her dad Fernando had already gone to bed with a bad cold and that they should not be going to a disco 'at this time of night'.
This was the last time Miriam's parents heard her voice – and Matilde passed away from cancer in 1998, believed to have been brought on by the loss of her daughter and her own guilt, something Fernando, who continues to fight for the truth, says he will always live with.
According to witnesses, the girls got into a car which stopped for them, but it broke down near a petrol station and they got out and thumbed another lift.
They then got into a car driven by Miquel Ricart, 23, and also occupied by Antonio Anglés, 26.
Once they reached the disco, Anglés ordered Ricart to keep driving, which terrified the girls, according to the case file.
They were taken to an abandoned house in a rural area where they were raped repeatedly, including anally, sexually abused with very large, blunt objects, long poles and sharp instruments inserted into both orifices, tied up and beaten.
The girls were then untied near a huge hole which had been dug in the ground and believed they were going to be set free, but one girl was stabbed twice in the back and they discovered this was to be their last resting place.
http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/23442/parot-doctrine-prisoners-released-fears-satanic-alcasser-schoolgirl-killer-could-be-next
ReplyDeleteA court heard the girls were forced to walk into their own grave and that two of them were shot in the head, killing them outright, whilst the third – who had been stabbed – was beaten with stones and sticks for another hour, lying tied up on top of the bodies of her two friends, before also being shot in the head.
When their bodies were found, forensics revealed that one girl's arm had been sawn off above the elbow and another had her nipple wrenched off with a pair of pliers, and that this and all their other bruising and broken bones were sustained while they were still alive.
Some experienced investigators had to be excused from the case because the state of the girls' bodies after less than 24 hours of torture was so extreme that they were too distressed to continue.
The post-mortem showed that at least two of them had put up a fight while being tortured, and that one of the girls was raped again after she was dead.