The Law

This subject always fascinates me, I recently came across an article about council tax and a group of people who are refusing to pay it because it's not lawful, it's a very complex subject involving statutes and common law, but basically it boils down to this.

Councils around the country are producing their own summons to appear at the magistrate’s court, which is illegal under common law and recently a test case was tried in Wales where a lay advisor refused to recognise the courts jurisdiction and asked the magistrates if they were under oath and wanted to be tried under common law. The court tried to "trick" the witnesses into accepting jurisdiction by asking them to leave the court but the simple action of standing up to leave would have meant they accepted the courts authority and could have been held in contempt of court.

Three times the clerk tried to get the lay advisor and his witnesses to leave the court and three times the lay advisor asked if the magistrates where under oath, they refused to answer, eventually the police were called and the lay advisor asked if the attending police officers where there under oath to uphold the law, they replied yes, that ensured that the lay advisor could stay in court... It would also have been assault if the police officers or any court official had tried to physically remove the lay advisor.

To cut a long story short eventually the magistrates left the court for the final time, at which point the lay advisor under common law was the highest authority in that court and he therefore dismissed the case.

The whole point of the exercise was to point out that a statute is not a law and magistrates/judges who will not admit to being under oath in a court of law are not being unbiased and do not have to uphold the law and are there purely for a summary judgement.

It turns out that no liability notice could be produced which meant there was no legal requirement for the accused person to be there, and it also means none ever existed and that the council were hiring the time and courts/room to execute these summary judgements to the ignorance of the general population.

It also means the council in question were acting illegally by producing their own court summons and basically lying to gain payment.

It makes you wonder who's side the court system is on doesn't it ? Especially if you are ignorant of the law and especially common law, and knowing the difference between a statute and the law. Laws are there to protect us, it seems statutes are there to control us.

Japan

What can you say about such an awful natural disaster ? apparently Japan has moved on average 4 metres to the east after the earthquake. I know I've been glued to the TV and Internet broadcasts over what is unfolding over there, it's very hard to imagine first of all your house very nearly being reduced to rubble then in some coastal places being swept away by a 35 metre high tsunami... I'm guessing the loss of life will be much higher than current estimates.... but then to have a nuclear disaster thrown into the mix as well... it doesn't really get much worse than that.... I just hope they don't get another big quake a few months afterwards like New Zealand did, that would just be the final nail in the coffin for some I should imagine....

No doubt the sick jokes will start to circulate soon, as they always do when either somebody famous dies or a huge natural disaster strikes... it seems to be par for the course these days... I'm a fan of black humour having been in the forces but even squaddie humour has it's limits especially when so many people have lost their lives, and I think we can be pretty certain many thousands have, and possibly many more to come.

The crackpots on the internet have surfaced saying that Nostradamus predicted this event.... No he didn't, no doubt David Icke will have something equally ridiculous to say on the subject.

All I can say on the matter is that all I can do is offer my sympathy to all those lost, but more so to the ones left behind who have to pick up the pieces....

Truly horrific

Pain and Sweat

We're getting our first delivery of seasoned wood soon, where we are going to stack it is a problem we will face when we get there, My father has been clearing some trees down at the boat club and he's offered us the trees ready cut up for the wood burner, although we won't be able to burn them until at least Christmas...

The sullen one has had her tonsils out yesterday and is feeling very sorry for herself, but as long as she keeps taking her painkillers and keeps eating  it will be manageable, I remember very well how bad it was when I had mine out, at least she had visitors after the operation.... unlike me, but that's another story and in a different world.....

She's going to be off school for a couple of weeks but at least she won't have to suffer the awful recurring tonsillitis she's been getting month in month out... that will be a thing of the past.

Andrea is running the Llanelli Half Marathon this weekend on Sunday and is in training for the Edinburgh Marathon at the end of May this year, she's not a happy bunny though because she is nursing a calf injury and runners who can't run very well or at all are officially the most miserable people on the planet, probably up there with a heroin addict not getting their fix....but obviously slightly more healthy....

Xbox boy did his mock selection in Cardiff over the last couple of days and apparently did very well, he was particularly impressed with his first official army breakfast on the second day. He has said that in all probability he will be put forward for real selection very soon, so he "may" be in the Army for real this summer fingers crossed.

Selection in itself hasn't changed very much, they still get you to carry jerry cans full of water, they still get you to do chin ups and the 1.5 mile run is the same, along with the circuit training, I suppose if it ain't broke then don't fix it.

What does puzzle me however are these "mock" selections I remember mine vividly and I was just given a date to turn up and a train travel warrant and you just did it, and you either passed or failed, I didn't have any mock selections or prior warning of what to expect, I'm wondering if that's to do with the lower level of fitness of teenagers today ?

I remember I wasn't that fazed by any of my selection process and found it particularly easy, but then I was a lot more active than Xbox boy at his age, climbing rocks, cycling, walking everywhere. I blame it on gaming and broadband... we didn't even have mobile phones when I was 16 and I didn't see them appear in their first brick like form until the early 1990's. Xbox boy was telling me that some of the lads on the mock selections had done four of them and still hadn't been put forward for their real selection because they weren't fit enough... bizarre

Anyway hopefully he'll be put forward relatively soon so he can get on with his chosen career of square dancing on minefields ;¬)

I'm hitting the big 48 in a few days..... the less said about that the better....equally bizarre because I don't feel a day over 30 and haven't for years....