cupid_stunt
Where's the bloody sun?
True, but is anything untrue in that report?
Boris Johnson must go on trial for 'lying and misleading' in Brexit campaign, judge orders
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True, but is anything untrue in that report?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
BBC News reporting BJ's defence team are saying this was political campaigning, implying MPs get a 'free pass', and nothing to do with his 'day-job', e.g. as Mayor of London, implying perhaps that position doesn't get a 'free pass'.
Despite it being a private prosecution, apparently the CPS can step in at any point and stop it, as 'not in the public interest', although the suggestion is the CPS wouldn't actually do that in this case, because it's such a 'hot potato'.
Where ever it goes, there's going to be some proper entertainment involved.
He's a petulant cunt, so I bet he's throwing massive wobblies behind the scenes. That's a thought that pleases me immensely.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
As opposed to Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
It's hardly done well since he announced his intent to stand for leader of the tory party
Nylock
I hate 'these days'...
I, for one, have no issue with this concept...
If the law is being brought to bear against liars in public office then it should be applied equally, not just against the twats we hate.
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
Yes, cos the law is always applied equally...
“In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.”
kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
I'm liking the precision of his language.
I don't suppose he'll discuss this case as it's live and his words could influence a jury.
Finding jurors who don't have a pre-existing view won't be easy
In UK law that isn't an issue. US got all het up about jury selection. Here as long as they don't discuss with anyone else they are trusted to use their own minds.
kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
Ironically, the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 was repealed for the most part by the Consumer Protection from Unfair trading Regulations 2008 which brought into domestic law the The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC. However, the Fraud Act 2006 is often a more effective tool..
newbie
undisambiguated
The CPS says
Both sides can check the backgrounds of people on the panel so in theory they can then challenge any obviously biased candidates.
Finding anyone in the country without some sort of strong view about Johnson would be hard. This is a well funded private prosecution, with both sides motivated in a massively political test case with profound implications, so it's reasonable to suppose absolutely everything possible will be contested.
It was more of a weak joke than a serious point, though.
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kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
Thanks. Didn't know any of that. Haven't come across it before.
ETA Just read it through and it does look like it happens in extremely exceptional circumstances whereas in the US jury selection is half the battle for trial lawyers.
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newbie
undisambiguated
Well that's good- I thought you might say "I'm a lawyer and ..." and I'd have egg on face
This has the makings of an exceptional case- even if Johnson isn't PM if it ever comes to court- as it's being prosecuted by a freelance troublemaker on a mission.
eoin_k
Lawyer's fees, beetroot and music
I vaguely recall the Stoke Newington Eight being the last trial in which jury selection was used strategically by the defence to try and infleunce the composition of the panel, rather than just as a tactic to address a very specific material concern. While not sure on the details, I think the rules of how it applies became much more narrowly defined afterwards.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Amusing as it is, this case against Johnson is nonsense. I'd have thought there was more substance to the Blair (Iraq) case. Seem to remember there were discussions about mounting a prosecution against him after the Chilcot Inquiry reported. Came to nothing as did all the talk of doing him for war crimes, but at least there was something like a paper trail there on the 'sexing up'.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yeh but his example of nick clegg's not really thought through. nc entered government - nc, it must be said, to his own surprise - and once there found, he felt, matters did not allow him to keep his promise. that's really rather different from telling a load of lies with an utterly cavalier disregard for the truth in a referendum campaign.
Actually I agree with that, but I think what Malik was mainly getting at that the legal action against Johnson is a pointless and maybe even undesirable, exercise (or so Malik thinks).
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
hmm. for much of the campaign (until 5/5/16) johnson was mayor of london. for the remainder he was mp for uxbridge. he did not seek re-election to the mayoralty. he has been re-elected by the burghers of uxbridge. but! when will the people to whom he spoke on the stump have recourse to eject him at the ballot box?
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
I am an admirer of Malik normally but that article is risible.
For a start this is not a case of the law expanding itself into a new area; it is a common law offence and applies to all public officers. Nor is there any substantive difference in law, at least for this offence, between a doctor, a solicitor, a cop or a mayor and an MP or minister - if its misconduct for a doctor to lie to you, it is misconduct when an MP does it. It would be not applying this to MPs that would be legal over-reach, given that Parliament hasn't in nearly 350 years (and nearly 100 years of them being paid) felt the need to make a specific exemption for MPs. One might also point to the very strong presumption in Parliament against lying - requiring ministers and MPs to apologise for misleading the house, disciplining them when they don't, the ban on calling another MP a liar in the Commons etc - as further evidence of how seriously Parliament takes MPs not telling the truth.
What is even worse is his next argument that an MP must obey but not be answerable to the law, only the electorate - an argument which manages to completely misunderstand the concept of British parliamentary elections (in which parties and leaders are at least as important as MPs, so MPs do not really get personal mandates), which forgets that the electorate would have to vote on everything that MP had done in five years (so providing no specific mandate for any particular act), which would legitimize the blatant criminality of the past twenty years and which to build on Pickman's point would only apply to their individual constituents anyway (and not even then if they stood down / changed role), not the wider public who might have been victimised by what has happened.
What takes the biscuit though is that its fundamentally the same argument - that MPs are covered by Parliamentary priviledge when committing criminal offences in relation to their office - that Chaytor et al tried when they were caught robbing their expenses, an argument that the Supreme Court rejected overwhelmingly because it was nonsense that was unsupported by any actual evidence.
edit: point 99 of that judgement perhaps says this better than anything else:
For a start this is not a case of the law expanding itself into a new area; it is a common law offence and applies to all public officers. Nor is there any substantive difference in law, at least for this offence, between a doctor, a solicitor, a cop or a mayor and an MP or minister - if its misconduct for a doctor to lie to you, it is misconduct when an MP does it. It would be not applying this to MPs that would be legal over-reach, given that Parliament hasn't in nearly 350 years (and nearly 100 years of them being paid) felt the need to make a specific exemption for MPs. One might also point to the very strong presumption in Parliament against lying - requiring ministers and MPs to apologise for misleading the house, disciplining them when they don't, the ban on calling another MP a liar in the Commons etc - as further evidence of how seriously Parliament takes MPs not telling the truth.
What is even worse is his next argument that an MP must obey but not be answerable to the law, only the electorate - an argument which manages to completely misunderstand the concept of British parliamentary elections (in which parties and leaders are at least as important as MPs, so MPs do not really get personal mandates), which forgets that the electorate would have to vote on everything that MP had done in five years (so providing no specific mandate for any particular act), which would legitimize the blatant criminality of the past twenty years and which to build on Pickman's point would only apply to their individual constituents anyway (and not even then if they stood down / changed role), not the wider public who might have been victimised by what has happened.
What takes the biscuit though is that its fundamentally the same argument - that MPs are covered by Parliamentary priviledge when committing criminal offences in relation to their office - that Chaytor et al tried when they were caught robbing their expenses, an argument that the Supreme Court rejected overwhelmingly because it was nonsense that was unsupported by any actual evidence.
edit: point 99 of that judgement perhaps says this better than anything else:
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newbie
undisambiguated
Are there precedents for the prosecution of a prominent politician for claims made during campaigning?
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
Not that I am aware of, though it doesn't really matter - if you accept (as Malik did) that its right for a doctor or lawyer to be guilty under this then it will extend to prominent politicians (provided that they are holders of public office).
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Why, that does not logically follow at all?
In fact you what you are doing is making politics into an expert field rather than battleground of opinions.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
It is objectively true that the UK pays £a to the eu. It cannot be objectively true for a to vary as bj feels. The issue at hand is not interpretation of facts - opinions, if you will - but whether it is incumbent on politicians not to vary them. Bj has great form in this area as eg his the Germans won stalingrad suggests
cupid_stunt
Where's the bloody sun?
ruffneck23
front left
needs more crowd funding, the problem is that the blond twat has so much money he could end up having any case withdrawn as the prosecutors run out of funds.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
anything there is is likely to emanate from a campaign for your actual election as opposed to someone who isn't campaigning for election, changes jobs 2/3 of the way through the campaign, and is campaigning in a referendum
newbie
undisambiguated
I wouldn't be over surprised if you had to back to the 17th century to find anything remotely similar. Whether or not judges should be able to arbitrate the rhetoric of politicians is the sort of thing they were settling then. I guess the JR will work all that out.
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