[jambutty]

Originally Posted by Eric

Of course England has a constitution. It's not a document that one can buy in a bookstore, a nice thick Penguin classic, with "Constitution" written on it, but the centuries of common law, precedent, and statute law. And what form of govt does the UK have? A Constitutional Monarchy. And just because there is no clause called a fifth ammendment does not mean that it doesn't exist in England in fact and in practice.

And this silliness of having an accused forced to take the stand. How does one "force" if not by using the "duress" mentioned in another place in your post? And how does one force an accused to tell the truth? Thumbscrews?

And in a subsequent post you talk about the "law" as if it is the final word. That it somehow has the divine sanction of the decalogue. It is firmly in the English tradition where it began, and in all the legal systems of democratic countries, that some laws are, in essence, illegal. The idea of "ultra vires" gives the judiciaries the right to judge the legality of laws. The US supreme court is an fine example.

Ever since Nuremberg, the democratic communities of the world, seem to agree that just because a certain govt passes "laws" this does not mean that they are "legal" or "just" in the wider sense.

England does not have a written constitution similar to the one for the USA. The nearest we have is the Magna Carta but even that is a long way from a proper constitution.

What we have is a set of laws that appear on a variety of documents generated over the years. See http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/british_constitution1.htm

The fact that we have a Constitutional Monarchy doesn’t mean we have a constitution. See http://www.royal.gov.uk/textonly/Page4682.asp

A prisoner does have the right to silence in England except in one motoring law, which has driven a coach and horses through that right. In fact there have been recent rumblings in Parliament to take away that right for all criminal charges.

If the best that you can do is make derogatory remarks about a suggestion, calling it silly, then you really must be scraping the barrel to try and some give validity to your point of view.

You obviously know nothing about being cross-examined in the witness box. No one forces anyone to say anything but with skilled questioning under observation of the whole of the court, a council will get at the truth much quicker. Refusing to answer a question can say more than the actual answer. After all doesn’t the accused get questioned by the police after being arrested? So what is the difference to being questioned in open court? I’ll tell you. The difference is that the judge, jury and everyone else will be a witness to the questioning. They will see that the questioning is fair and just and no recriminations afterwards that the prisoner was bullied into making a confession as has happened so many times. Talking about thumbscrews is just a facetious remark that people often employ when they haven’t got a constructive point to make and are arguing for arguments sake.

The law is the final word in England whether you like it or not. The laws of the land decree what we, the citizens, can and cannot do and also lays down the penalties if we are caught breaking the law. That sounds pretty final to me.

“decalogue” Now where did you dig that one up from? Did you think that you could baffle me with words that are hardly used these days? In any case it hardly applies to English law, which has nothing divine about it.

A legitimate law passed by a legitimate government cannot be illegal. It can be controversial or even contradictory with other laws but never illegal. You do understand the English language I presume.

As I stated before I don’t give a Tinker’s cuss about US laws or the US courts, supreme or otherwise. This is debate is about English law and references to any other country’s laws is an irrelevance. But then if you don’t have a constructive argument to put forward to add weight to your position then bring in irrelevances to try and confuse the issue. It’s an age old tactic.

Legal and just are two entirely different concepts. Some people may consider a law to be just and others may consider it to be unjust but if passed by a legitimate government it is legal. FULL STOP!

My view is neither right nor wrong, just mine. Some people may agree with it whilst others may not.

You can argue yourself until you are blue in the face but I have made my position clear on this subject and I have no intention of repeating myself endlessly to satisfy some warped argumentative psyche.