Maurice Kellett
2007-04-12 16:34:21 UTC
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE
7th JUDICIAL CIRCUIT
IN AND FOR ST. JOHNS COUNTY,
FLORIDA
GENERAL JURISDICTION DIVISION
THE SOCIETY OF LLOYDS
Case No. : CA 03-542 (55)
Plaintiff,
vs.
KARL ARONSON,
Defendant.
_________________________________________
AFFIDAVIT OF SUZON FORSCEY-MOORE
_________________________________________
I, Suzon Forscey-Moore, of 53 Abbey Road, Cambridge, England CB5 8HH, based
upon my personal knowledge, hereby declare as follows:
Introduction
1. I am a citizen of the United States and a naturalized subject of the United
Kingdom. I was born and grew up in Jamestown, New York and moved to the Los
Angeles area where I lived for 25 years. I first came to England in 1976 while a
student at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Pitzer awarded me a BA in
English in 1977. I moved to Cambridge, England in 1987. In 1992, I began to
campaign for ministerial accountability. In 1996, I began campaigning for judicial
reform. In January 2001 I was awarded a Masters degree in law by DeMontfort
University in Leicester, England for my dissertation on The Prerogative of
Summing Up in Miscarriages of Justice in the Crown Courts of England & Wales. I
began work on a PhD on the English Civil Justice system at Anglia Ruskin
University in Cambridge in September, 2002.
2. I make this affidavit at the request of Charles B. Lembcke, counsel for Karl
Aronson. I have been advised that it will be submitted in response to the question
posed by the Court at the hearing on Lloyds Motion for Summary Judgment as to
whether the English legal system offers fair and impartial tribunals.
3. The true nature of the English legal system should be properly established
for the protection of past and future investors who are citizens of the United States
and other jurisdictions as English courts are, despite their considerable reputation,
neither fair nor impartial.
4. This affidavit contains material which may be outside of the norms of
evidence. However, due to historical and cultural differences and in the context of
the important issue to be decided, descriptive material is relevant and necessary if
the Florida Court is to reach a well-founded and defensible decision.
5. Contemporary hearings in English courts may be best understood as
traditional theatrical rituals in which agents dressed in ceremonial 18th century
costume unselfconsciously honor their oath of loyalty to the Queen by dismissing
and/or punishing unimportant people for their foolish insistence on justice and fair
play. Courts in other jurisdictions should distance themselves from the perverse
character of English law where unexamined belief in an hereditary system of
privilege trumphs the fair application of principles of law.
6. It would be wrong for the Florida Court to turn a blind eye to a system in
which the rights of the individual are sacrificed for a perceived but unjustifiable
greater good, the protection of a privileged hereditary elite.
Jaffray v. Lloyds in the Court of Appeal for England & Wales
7. This case reveals, through its historical context and in the recent conduct of
the English judiciary in Jaffray, that financial affairs and affairs of state in the
United Kingdom, have been and continue to be decided by a secretive elite
largely composed of and of mutual benefit to hereditary aristocrats.
8. Lloyds of London, an international insurance underwriter, evolved from
transactions between shipowners, merchants and insurers in the 1680s. It
was given a unique status by Parliament in the Lloyds Act of 1862. Lloyds names
were men of considerable wealth and influence.
9. Until greater suffrage was allowed in the1830s, Parliament was openly run
by the hereditary aristocracy, men who used their positions to pass laws for their
own benefit, whether that was legitimising their bastards or raising the price of
grain or deciding the most advantageous location of a new canal.
10. The aristocracy did not have to relinquish their power to continue to order
things to their personal advantage. Every elected Member of Parliament (MP) has
to swear allegiance to the Queen in order to be able to speak, to have an office and
be paid.
11. The United Kingdom of which England is the dominant nation is selfdescribed
as a constitutional monarchy even though there is no constitution and
no current plans to adopt one. The Royal Prerogative, a notion undefined in law and
operating without parliamentary oversight, allows ministers, judges and other
administrators unlimited and unrestrained use of power.
12. In 2004, the House Select Committee on Public Administration studied the
Royal Prerogative. The result was that ministers proposed to entrench their
secretive powers under the Royal Prerogative in the Legislative Regulatory and
Reform Bill which opponents labeled the Abolition of Parliament Bill.
13. Crown immunity is the mechanism which enables the prerogative. It is
accepted by those in power that anything which is done in the name of the
Crown--every administrative, legislative and judicial action--is immune from
prosecution. The assumption is that those in power can do no wrong.
14. The Royal Arms in the form of the Lion and Unicorn and a motto which
proclaims Dieu et mon droit (French for God and my right) presided over the Court
of Appeal in Jaffray, just as they hang behind the bench in English courtrooms and
appear on the letterheads of the Queens government. This is no outdated and
quaint symbol but a genuine emblem of the Queens overarching authority.
15. There is also a mostly hidden motto on the Royal Arms: Honi soit qui mal y
pense, which is French for Shame on whoever thinks evil of this. Criticism of the
Queen and the hereditary system she represents is pre-condemned.
16. Americans pledge their allegiance to a flag which represents a nation where
the ideal is liberty and justice for all. In England everyone in a position of authority
pledges their allegiance to the Queen, an individual who by accident of birth
inherited unlimited powers of patronage. Neither Parliament nor the Judiciary have
any restraining effect.
17. When the interests of the Queen and any part of her elite government are
at risk, only one outcome is acceptable. Legal proceedings in English courts
are therefore driven to that outcome by fair means or foul.
18. Criminal law (which is of little concern to the hereditary powers) is highly
codified. Government at all levels, however, has "codes" and "guidelines" which
can be breached freely. The conduct of the commoner is ruthlessly scrutinized
while misconduct by their betters goes unpunished. White collar crime, with
very rare exceptions, goes untried and unpunished in English law.
The Action
19. In the civil action in Englands Court of Appeal in the matter of Jaffray v The
Society of Lloyds, the court found that the Lloyds sales brochures used to attract
investors had misrepresented their audits as rigorous and true and fair. The
court found that these statements were both untrue and material. The court also
found that Lloyds had no audit at all. Lloyds misled investors, creating financial
ruin for tens of thousands. The mental and physical trauma of this would lead to
suicides and early graves, yet the Court of Appeal, in its great serenity, failed to
hold Lloyds to account.
20. In the Jaffray hearing, witnesses could not be cross-examined because of a
perverse requirement that the cross-examiner accept the witness statement as
true before cross-examination. This not only impedes the search for truth, but
protects an unprincipled witness from the (however unlikely) risk of being
prosecuted for perjury.
21. Litigants in person were not allowed to cross-examine witnesses at all, a
clear demonstration of unequal treatment (in 1993-94, litigants in person had a
96% failure rate in the Court of Appeal).
22. Fraudulent concealment was not allowed to be at issue in Jaffray. The
doctrines of fraudulent concealment and/or fraudulent non-disclosure are not
recognised under English law.
23. The Jaffray appeal was not misconducted under English law (no such thing
is possible given the English judge's unfettered discretion), but English law does
not recognise the delivery of justice and remedy to those who have been defrauded
as its duty. The English Court of Appeal accepted that it had a higher duty to uphold
private legislation rubberstamped by Parliament.
Immunity
24. Names who have suffered damage and loss have been denied
compensation because Section 14 of the Lloyds Act of 1982 grants Lloyds
immunity. Self-granted and undeserved immunity is an almost universal
characteristic of English law. Immunity confers privilege and undeserved privilege
is inequality.
25. Lloyds had immunity for all acts except intentional fraud. The authors of the
act would have known that intent is hard to prove and easy to deny.
26. Judges are covered by Crown immunity in all their actions. Barristers cannot
be sued for negligence. Geoffrey Robertson QC, a barrister with 25 years
experience stated in regard to this immunity (1999):: "...[B]arristers are well paid
and immune to actions for negligence...They cling to their immunity from actions
for negligence - an unjustified privilege which protects incompetents from being
sued."
27. Some barristers can earn as much as £3 million (over $5 million) in a year.
They may be highly skilled, but their main value to clients may be in the high fees
they charge. English courts can and frequently do make the losing side pay some
or all of the other sides costs. Parties will settle rather than face costs that could
bankrupt them.
28. Combine the barristers immunity with his weatlhy clients power of financial
intimidation and there is very little that cant be done to destroy the chances of any
opposing party. Money decides legal matters.
Failure to Prosecute for Corruption
29. Robertson said about corruption, I meet colleagues from other countries
who are special prosecutors, putting behind bars Mafia bosses and masters of
the Wall Street universe, or who head commissions which catch by their white
collars corrupt politicians and public servants and policemen. But in Britain, you
still have to be pretty stupid to end up in prison.
Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice
30. Mr. Ian Hay Davison, the CEO of the Society of Lloyds from 1983 through
1985, wrote a letter to a distressed Lloyds name saying that:
Mr. John Taylor 3rd December 1997
Holly Tree House
Sotherton Wangford
Beccles
Suffolk NR34 8AL
Dear Mr. Taylor,
Thank you for your letter of 23rd November. During my time at Lloyds
and subsequently I had a series of lengthy interviews with the Serious
Fraud Office concerning the various frauds. Regrettably, the
Government, on policy grounds, decided not to prosecute any of
those involved and no successful prosecutions were brought.
(my emphasis) I was, and remain, extremely indignant and disappointed at
this.
Yours sincerely
From Ian Hay Davison
31. When Hay Davison brought matters to the attention of the authorities, he did
so in the hopes that they would prosecute and bring criminal proceedings, but no
steps were taken. In a witness statement, he said,
I continue to regard that as being a major strategic mistake taken at the
highest level of Government. It allowed Lloyd's to believe that it could
operate effectively above and beyond the law (my emphasis). Such a
cultural belief, whether true or not, can only lead to arrogance and a
disregard of legal requirements. In my opinion that is precisely what has
happened at Lloyd's since 1986.
32. He added, "[T]here must be something wrong with a system of criminal
justice in which a shoplifter goes to jail for petty theft and a City fraudster, who
may have stolen millions, gets away scot free" (my emphasis).
Violation of Article VII of the Bill of Rights
33. In English civil law, the trial judge can deny trial by jury, as happened in
Jaffray. US litigants unwillingly compelled to take their chances in English
courts lost the protection guaranteed to them in Article VII of the Bill of Rights: In
Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars,
the right to trial by jury shall be preserved. In Jaffray, US citizens were deprived of
one of their most important constitutional rights, trial by jury. On that ground alone,
finding English courts equivalent to US courts would be wrong. The Founding
Fathers wrote an unqualified protection of the individual into the US Constitution.
The Fiction of an Impartial and Independent Judiciary
34. English judges have been drawn from what Americans would call the upper
classes (male, pale and stale). Almost all High Court judges are graduates of
Oxford and Cambridge, universities so elite that students are freed from lowly tasks
like making their own beds and doing their laundry.
35. English judges are political appointees chosen by the Lord Chancellor by a
secret soundings process (just recently to be replaced by a commission) who
cannot be disciplined for misconduct. Circuit judges are given luxurious houses
(and cooks, cars and drivers) as public hotel accommodation might somehow
contaminate and compromise their independence.
36. However, five of the judges who presided over Jaffray and other Lloyds
litigation in the High Court and Appeal Court are on the Contributing Faculty of the
London Law Shipping Centre of which Lloyds is a sponsor.
37. In England, partnerships, memberships, societies and associations are
much more important in public administration. Some official working partnerships
are between local authorities (district and city councils), police and the courts. They
work as one and not necessarily for the public good.
38. English legal practitioners--lawyers and judges--regularly dine together in
the Inns of Court.
39. I have seen a judge refuse to recuse himself from hearing a case of
scandalisint the court when he was one of the nine judges who had been
accused of treason.
40. When the Birmingham Six, whose convictions for an IRA bombing were
overturned after 17 years of wrongful imprisonment, sued the police, accusing
them of assault, the then Head of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal stopped
the action saying, "If the six men win, it will mean that the police were guilty of
perjury...and that the convictions were erroneous...this is such an appauling vista
that every person in the land would say, 'It cannot be right that these actions should
go any further'".
41. That is not much different from from the Court of Appeal refusing to follow the
implications of Lloyd's criminal activities in Jaffray.
42. Eight years later (1988), the same judge followed up by saying about the
Birmingham Six after the evidence of the injustice had been made clear, "It is better
that some innocent men remain in jail than the integrity of the English judicial
system be impugned".
43. That is not much different from the Court of Appeal effectively saying in
Jaffray, "It is better that thousands of people are wrongly made destitute than the
integrity of Lloyd's (and the government which should have deterred Lloyd's fraud)
be impugned".
44. The judge who made the comments above was the much revered Lord
Denning, a decent, moral, intelligent and articulate man deemed "the people's
judge" and "the judge of the 20th century". Denning's reputation and the system's
reputation had become entwined. Finding fault with the system was beyond him.
Individuals for whom the system works, will see no need to analyse it. It is the
victims on whom that difficult burden falls.
45. Inquiries into possible government misconduct are placed into the hands
of Law Lords who are usually Privy Councillors (q.v.) sitting in Parliament in the
House of Lords. Their inquiries proceed along predictable lines: (1)a
conveniently limited remit; (2) an investigation inside that remit; (3) a lengthy
exposition of the evidence gathered; (4) some sharp words of rebuke, usually
limited to minor points; and (5) an exoneration of the government. The reports
published by Lord Butler (into the sexed-up dossier on Iraq and WMDs),
Lord Hutton (on the death of Dr David Kelley) and Lord Justice Scott (on the
Matrix-Churchill arms to Iraq scandal) all follow this pattern.
No Separation of Powers
46. In the late 19th century, the constitutional authority Walter Bagehot
declared the obvious, that there was no division between executive, legislative and
judicial power. The English legal system is not significantly different than it was in
1850-51 when Dickens was writing about its destructive nature in Bleak House.
The Lord Chancellor is still the head of the judiciary, a party politician, the most
privileged member of the administration and an unelected member of Parliament
in the House of Lords.
47. Bagehot wrote that Just as the American is the type of composite
Governments, in which the supreme power is divided between many bodies and
functionaries, so the English is the type of simple Constitutions, in which the
ultimate power upon all questions is in the hands of the same persons (my
emphasis).
The Privy Council .A Secret Government
48. The government of the United Kingdom is like a parade float, carefully
designed to be admired on the outside (British justice is the best in the
world), with the driving mechanisms hidden and the driver unseen. The Privy
Council, originally a secret group of advisors to the monarch, exists to this day,
uniting in common cause the Law Lords, Appeal Court judges, Cabinet ministers
and leaders of opposition parties with Princes, Dukes, Earls, Viscounts, Barons
and Bishops from the Church of England.
49. Privy Councillors, including Appeal Court judges, swear an oath to place
the interests of the Monarch above all else (You will to your uttermost bear faith
and allegiance to the Queens Majesty) in direct contradiction to their judicial oath
to adjudicate without fear or favour. The oath also enshrines secrecy: You will in
all things to be moved, treated and debated in Council...keep secret all Matters
committed and revealed unto you, or that shall be treated secretly in Council.
An Accommodating Press
50. In 1979 on a BBC TV program, a prominent newspaper publisher was
asked whether it was true that he had once said that if his reporters uncovered
a Watergate type scandal in Britain he would have difficulties in allowing them to
print the story. He replied, 'I believe in Britain first...If it would harm Britain, I
would suppress it.'"
Threat of Order to Pay the Other Sides Costs
51. I chose not to go to law to complain of fraud (though the evidence was
irrefutable) for the following reasons: (1) I have observed that it is almost always
the party with higher status who wins; (2) I have observed that the police and
Crown Prosecution Service cannot be relied upon to take action; (3) I have
observed that judges split attempted class actions into individual complaints and
then turn a blind eye to the aggregate loss and damage; and (4) I could be made to
pay not only my own more predictable legal costs but also the other sides
potentially ruinous legal costs. There is no limit to the costs that can accrue.
52. The threat of having to pay the legal costs of a party with very deep pockets is
the factor which most deterred me from taking a dishonest person to court. I have
been denied justice and--due to his status--he remains free to continue to corrupt
my elected representatives and defraud other people.
53. Judges have even been known to require the winning party to pay all of the
losing partys costs.
54. In a 1999 report on access to justice, the then Head of the Civil Division
admitted that English civil law was too expensive, too slow, too unequal, too
uncertain, too fragmented and--to many--incomprehensible (my emphasis).
55. Any legal system which is too expensive, too slow, too unequal and too
uncertain provides a strong temptation for all manner and forms of wrongdoing.
Attitudes Towards European Law
7th JUDICIAL CIRCUIT
IN AND FOR ST. JOHNS COUNTY,
FLORIDA
GENERAL JURISDICTION DIVISION
THE SOCIETY OF LLOYDS
Case No. : CA 03-542 (55)
Plaintiff,
vs.
KARL ARONSON,
Defendant.
_________________________________________
AFFIDAVIT OF SUZON FORSCEY-MOORE
_________________________________________
I, Suzon Forscey-Moore, of 53 Abbey Road, Cambridge, England CB5 8HH, based
upon my personal knowledge, hereby declare as follows:
Introduction
1. I am a citizen of the United States and a naturalized subject of the United
Kingdom. I was born and grew up in Jamestown, New York and moved to the Los
Angeles area where I lived for 25 years. I first came to England in 1976 while a
student at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Pitzer awarded me a BA in
English in 1977. I moved to Cambridge, England in 1987. In 1992, I began to
campaign for ministerial accountability. In 1996, I began campaigning for judicial
reform. In January 2001 I was awarded a Masters degree in law by DeMontfort
University in Leicester, England for my dissertation on The Prerogative of
Summing Up in Miscarriages of Justice in the Crown Courts of England & Wales. I
began work on a PhD on the English Civil Justice system at Anglia Ruskin
University in Cambridge in September, 2002.
2. I make this affidavit at the request of Charles B. Lembcke, counsel for Karl
Aronson. I have been advised that it will be submitted in response to the question
posed by the Court at the hearing on Lloyds Motion for Summary Judgment as to
whether the English legal system offers fair and impartial tribunals.
3. The true nature of the English legal system should be properly established
for the protection of past and future investors who are citizens of the United States
and other jurisdictions as English courts are, despite their considerable reputation,
neither fair nor impartial.
4. This affidavit contains material which may be outside of the norms of
evidence. However, due to historical and cultural differences and in the context of
the important issue to be decided, descriptive material is relevant and necessary if
the Florida Court is to reach a well-founded and defensible decision.
5. Contemporary hearings in English courts may be best understood as
traditional theatrical rituals in which agents dressed in ceremonial 18th century
costume unselfconsciously honor their oath of loyalty to the Queen by dismissing
and/or punishing unimportant people for their foolish insistence on justice and fair
play. Courts in other jurisdictions should distance themselves from the perverse
character of English law where unexamined belief in an hereditary system of
privilege trumphs the fair application of principles of law.
6. It would be wrong for the Florida Court to turn a blind eye to a system in
which the rights of the individual are sacrificed for a perceived but unjustifiable
greater good, the protection of a privileged hereditary elite.
Jaffray v. Lloyds in the Court of Appeal for England & Wales
7. This case reveals, through its historical context and in the recent conduct of
the English judiciary in Jaffray, that financial affairs and affairs of state in the
United Kingdom, have been and continue to be decided by a secretive elite
largely composed of and of mutual benefit to hereditary aristocrats.
8. Lloyds of London, an international insurance underwriter, evolved from
transactions between shipowners, merchants and insurers in the 1680s. It
was given a unique status by Parliament in the Lloyds Act of 1862. Lloyds names
were men of considerable wealth and influence.
9. Until greater suffrage was allowed in the1830s, Parliament was openly run
by the hereditary aristocracy, men who used their positions to pass laws for their
own benefit, whether that was legitimising their bastards or raising the price of
grain or deciding the most advantageous location of a new canal.
10. The aristocracy did not have to relinquish their power to continue to order
things to their personal advantage. Every elected Member of Parliament (MP) has
to swear allegiance to the Queen in order to be able to speak, to have an office and
be paid.
11. The United Kingdom of which England is the dominant nation is selfdescribed
as a constitutional monarchy even though there is no constitution and
no current plans to adopt one. The Royal Prerogative, a notion undefined in law and
operating without parliamentary oversight, allows ministers, judges and other
administrators unlimited and unrestrained use of power.
12. In 2004, the House Select Committee on Public Administration studied the
Royal Prerogative. The result was that ministers proposed to entrench their
secretive powers under the Royal Prerogative in the Legislative Regulatory and
Reform Bill which opponents labeled the Abolition of Parliament Bill.
13. Crown immunity is the mechanism which enables the prerogative. It is
accepted by those in power that anything which is done in the name of the
Crown--every administrative, legislative and judicial action--is immune from
prosecution. The assumption is that those in power can do no wrong.
14. The Royal Arms in the form of the Lion and Unicorn and a motto which
proclaims Dieu et mon droit (French for God and my right) presided over the Court
of Appeal in Jaffray, just as they hang behind the bench in English courtrooms and
appear on the letterheads of the Queens government. This is no outdated and
quaint symbol but a genuine emblem of the Queens overarching authority.
15. There is also a mostly hidden motto on the Royal Arms: Honi soit qui mal y
pense, which is French for Shame on whoever thinks evil of this. Criticism of the
Queen and the hereditary system she represents is pre-condemned.
16. Americans pledge their allegiance to a flag which represents a nation where
the ideal is liberty and justice for all. In England everyone in a position of authority
pledges their allegiance to the Queen, an individual who by accident of birth
inherited unlimited powers of patronage. Neither Parliament nor the Judiciary have
any restraining effect.
17. When the interests of the Queen and any part of her elite government are
at risk, only one outcome is acceptable. Legal proceedings in English courts
are therefore driven to that outcome by fair means or foul.
18. Criminal law (which is of little concern to the hereditary powers) is highly
codified. Government at all levels, however, has "codes" and "guidelines" which
can be breached freely. The conduct of the commoner is ruthlessly scrutinized
while misconduct by their betters goes unpunished. White collar crime, with
very rare exceptions, goes untried and unpunished in English law.
The Action
19. In the civil action in Englands Court of Appeal in the matter of Jaffray v The
Society of Lloyds, the court found that the Lloyds sales brochures used to attract
investors had misrepresented their audits as rigorous and true and fair. The
court found that these statements were both untrue and material. The court also
found that Lloyds had no audit at all. Lloyds misled investors, creating financial
ruin for tens of thousands. The mental and physical trauma of this would lead to
suicides and early graves, yet the Court of Appeal, in its great serenity, failed to
hold Lloyds to account.
20. In the Jaffray hearing, witnesses could not be cross-examined because of a
perverse requirement that the cross-examiner accept the witness statement as
true before cross-examination. This not only impedes the search for truth, but
protects an unprincipled witness from the (however unlikely) risk of being
prosecuted for perjury.
21. Litigants in person were not allowed to cross-examine witnesses at all, a
clear demonstration of unequal treatment (in 1993-94, litigants in person had a
96% failure rate in the Court of Appeal).
22. Fraudulent concealment was not allowed to be at issue in Jaffray. The
doctrines of fraudulent concealment and/or fraudulent non-disclosure are not
recognised under English law.
23. The Jaffray appeal was not misconducted under English law (no such thing
is possible given the English judge's unfettered discretion), but English law does
not recognise the delivery of justice and remedy to those who have been defrauded
as its duty. The English Court of Appeal accepted that it had a higher duty to uphold
private legislation rubberstamped by Parliament.
Immunity
24. Names who have suffered damage and loss have been denied
compensation because Section 14 of the Lloyds Act of 1982 grants Lloyds
immunity. Self-granted and undeserved immunity is an almost universal
characteristic of English law. Immunity confers privilege and undeserved privilege
is inequality.
25. Lloyds had immunity for all acts except intentional fraud. The authors of the
act would have known that intent is hard to prove and easy to deny.
26. Judges are covered by Crown immunity in all their actions. Barristers cannot
be sued for negligence. Geoffrey Robertson QC, a barrister with 25 years
experience stated in regard to this immunity (1999):: "...[B]arristers are well paid
and immune to actions for negligence...They cling to their immunity from actions
for negligence - an unjustified privilege which protects incompetents from being
sued."
27. Some barristers can earn as much as £3 million (over $5 million) in a year.
They may be highly skilled, but their main value to clients may be in the high fees
they charge. English courts can and frequently do make the losing side pay some
or all of the other sides costs. Parties will settle rather than face costs that could
bankrupt them.
28. Combine the barristers immunity with his weatlhy clients power of financial
intimidation and there is very little that cant be done to destroy the chances of any
opposing party. Money decides legal matters.
Failure to Prosecute for Corruption
29. Robertson said about corruption, I meet colleagues from other countries
who are special prosecutors, putting behind bars Mafia bosses and masters of
the Wall Street universe, or who head commissions which catch by their white
collars corrupt politicians and public servants and policemen. But in Britain, you
still have to be pretty stupid to end up in prison.
Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice
30. Mr. Ian Hay Davison, the CEO of the Society of Lloyds from 1983 through
1985, wrote a letter to a distressed Lloyds name saying that:
Mr. John Taylor 3rd December 1997
Holly Tree House
Sotherton Wangford
Beccles
Suffolk NR34 8AL
Dear Mr. Taylor,
Thank you for your letter of 23rd November. During my time at Lloyds
and subsequently I had a series of lengthy interviews with the Serious
Fraud Office concerning the various frauds. Regrettably, the
Government, on policy grounds, decided not to prosecute any of
those involved and no successful prosecutions were brought.
(my emphasis) I was, and remain, extremely indignant and disappointed at
this.
Yours sincerely
From Ian Hay Davison
31. When Hay Davison brought matters to the attention of the authorities, he did
so in the hopes that they would prosecute and bring criminal proceedings, but no
steps were taken. In a witness statement, he said,
I continue to regard that as being a major strategic mistake taken at the
highest level of Government. It allowed Lloyd's to believe that it could
operate effectively above and beyond the law (my emphasis). Such a
cultural belief, whether true or not, can only lead to arrogance and a
disregard of legal requirements. In my opinion that is precisely what has
happened at Lloyd's since 1986.
32. He added, "[T]here must be something wrong with a system of criminal
justice in which a shoplifter goes to jail for petty theft and a City fraudster, who
may have stolen millions, gets away scot free" (my emphasis).
Violation of Article VII of the Bill of Rights
33. In English civil law, the trial judge can deny trial by jury, as happened in
Jaffray. US litigants unwillingly compelled to take their chances in English
courts lost the protection guaranteed to them in Article VII of the Bill of Rights: In
Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars,
the right to trial by jury shall be preserved. In Jaffray, US citizens were deprived of
one of their most important constitutional rights, trial by jury. On that ground alone,
finding English courts equivalent to US courts would be wrong. The Founding
Fathers wrote an unqualified protection of the individual into the US Constitution.
The Fiction of an Impartial and Independent Judiciary
34. English judges have been drawn from what Americans would call the upper
classes (male, pale and stale). Almost all High Court judges are graduates of
Oxford and Cambridge, universities so elite that students are freed from lowly tasks
like making their own beds and doing their laundry.
35. English judges are political appointees chosen by the Lord Chancellor by a
secret soundings process (just recently to be replaced by a commission) who
cannot be disciplined for misconduct. Circuit judges are given luxurious houses
(and cooks, cars and drivers) as public hotel accommodation might somehow
contaminate and compromise their independence.
36. However, five of the judges who presided over Jaffray and other Lloyds
litigation in the High Court and Appeal Court are on the Contributing Faculty of the
London Law Shipping Centre of which Lloyds is a sponsor.
37. In England, partnerships, memberships, societies and associations are
much more important in public administration. Some official working partnerships
are between local authorities (district and city councils), police and the courts. They
work as one and not necessarily for the public good.
38. English legal practitioners--lawyers and judges--regularly dine together in
the Inns of Court.
39. I have seen a judge refuse to recuse himself from hearing a case of
scandalisint the court when he was one of the nine judges who had been
accused of treason.
40. When the Birmingham Six, whose convictions for an IRA bombing were
overturned after 17 years of wrongful imprisonment, sued the police, accusing
them of assault, the then Head of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal stopped
the action saying, "If the six men win, it will mean that the police were guilty of
perjury...and that the convictions were erroneous...this is such an appauling vista
that every person in the land would say, 'It cannot be right that these actions should
go any further'".
41. That is not much different from from the Court of Appeal refusing to follow the
implications of Lloyd's criminal activities in Jaffray.
42. Eight years later (1988), the same judge followed up by saying about the
Birmingham Six after the evidence of the injustice had been made clear, "It is better
that some innocent men remain in jail than the integrity of the English judicial
system be impugned".
43. That is not much different from the Court of Appeal effectively saying in
Jaffray, "It is better that thousands of people are wrongly made destitute than the
integrity of Lloyd's (and the government which should have deterred Lloyd's fraud)
be impugned".
44. The judge who made the comments above was the much revered Lord
Denning, a decent, moral, intelligent and articulate man deemed "the people's
judge" and "the judge of the 20th century". Denning's reputation and the system's
reputation had become entwined. Finding fault with the system was beyond him.
Individuals for whom the system works, will see no need to analyse it. It is the
victims on whom that difficult burden falls.
45. Inquiries into possible government misconduct are placed into the hands
of Law Lords who are usually Privy Councillors (q.v.) sitting in Parliament in the
House of Lords. Their inquiries proceed along predictable lines: (1)a
conveniently limited remit; (2) an investigation inside that remit; (3) a lengthy
exposition of the evidence gathered; (4) some sharp words of rebuke, usually
limited to minor points; and (5) an exoneration of the government. The reports
published by Lord Butler (into the sexed-up dossier on Iraq and WMDs),
Lord Hutton (on the death of Dr David Kelley) and Lord Justice Scott (on the
Matrix-Churchill arms to Iraq scandal) all follow this pattern.
No Separation of Powers
46. In the late 19th century, the constitutional authority Walter Bagehot
declared the obvious, that there was no division between executive, legislative and
judicial power. The English legal system is not significantly different than it was in
1850-51 when Dickens was writing about its destructive nature in Bleak House.
The Lord Chancellor is still the head of the judiciary, a party politician, the most
privileged member of the administration and an unelected member of Parliament
in the House of Lords.
47. Bagehot wrote that Just as the American is the type of composite
Governments, in which the supreme power is divided between many bodies and
functionaries, so the English is the type of simple Constitutions, in which the
ultimate power upon all questions is in the hands of the same persons (my
emphasis).
The Privy Council .A Secret Government
48. The government of the United Kingdom is like a parade float, carefully
designed to be admired on the outside (British justice is the best in the
world), with the driving mechanisms hidden and the driver unseen. The Privy
Council, originally a secret group of advisors to the monarch, exists to this day,
uniting in common cause the Law Lords, Appeal Court judges, Cabinet ministers
and leaders of opposition parties with Princes, Dukes, Earls, Viscounts, Barons
and Bishops from the Church of England.
49. Privy Councillors, including Appeal Court judges, swear an oath to place
the interests of the Monarch above all else (You will to your uttermost bear faith
and allegiance to the Queens Majesty) in direct contradiction to their judicial oath
to adjudicate without fear or favour. The oath also enshrines secrecy: You will in
all things to be moved, treated and debated in Council...keep secret all Matters
committed and revealed unto you, or that shall be treated secretly in Council.
An Accommodating Press
50. In 1979 on a BBC TV program, a prominent newspaper publisher was
asked whether it was true that he had once said that if his reporters uncovered
a Watergate type scandal in Britain he would have difficulties in allowing them to
print the story. He replied, 'I believe in Britain first...If it would harm Britain, I
would suppress it.'"
Threat of Order to Pay the Other Sides Costs
51. I chose not to go to law to complain of fraud (though the evidence was
irrefutable) for the following reasons: (1) I have observed that it is almost always
the party with higher status who wins; (2) I have observed that the police and
Crown Prosecution Service cannot be relied upon to take action; (3) I have
observed that judges split attempted class actions into individual complaints and
then turn a blind eye to the aggregate loss and damage; and (4) I could be made to
pay not only my own more predictable legal costs but also the other sides
potentially ruinous legal costs. There is no limit to the costs that can accrue.
52. The threat of having to pay the legal costs of a party with very deep pockets is
the factor which most deterred me from taking a dishonest person to court. I have
been denied justice and--due to his status--he remains free to continue to corrupt
my elected representatives and defraud other people.
53. Judges have even been known to require the winning party to pay all of the
losing partys costs.
54. In a 1999 report on access to justice, the then Head of the Civil Division
admitted that English civil law was too expensive, too slow, too unequal, too
uncertain, too fragmented and--to many--incomprehensible (my emphasis).
55. Any legal system which is too expensive, too slow, too unequal and too
uncertain provides a strong temptation for all manner and forms of wrongdoing.
Attitudes Towards European Law