Threat to Rule of Law Undermines Democracy Itself

Are the courts being pressured by business interests to find climate activists guilty?

A 350 year old rule of British law is under threat, and with it our very democracy itself.

Before giving evidence in court, every witness must either swear (if they are religious) or ‘solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm’ if they are not religious, that the evidence they are about to give shall be ‘the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

But recent rulings in the British courts have not only gagged witnesses and defendants to prevent them from telling ‘the whole truth’ but have even imprisoned them for attempting to give reasons and context for their actions.

Bushel’s Case

For 350 years, juries have had the right, inalienable in law, to acquit defendants according to their conscience. Democracy itself rests on the right to a fair trial by a jury of one’s peers. It is this very pillar of democracy which is now under threat.

To understand the context and the seriousness of the situation, we must go back to the year 1670, when two Quakers, William Penn and William Mead, were arrested for allegedly addressing an unlawful assembly.

Back in those days, an unlawful assembly was any religious assembly of more than five people outside the umbrella of the Church of England. Mead and Penn were accused of addressing such an assembly.

Originally charged simply with ‘speaking in Gracechurch Street’ the judge had modified the charge to ‘speaking in Gracechurch Street to an unlawful assembly’. Whilst the jury did initially find the two men guilty of ‘speaking in Gracechurch Street’ they refused to add ‘to an unlawful assembly.’

The judge was furious and demanded that the jury would not be dismissed until they produced a verdict which the court found acceptable. When the jury still refused to add ‘to an unlawful assembly’ to the verdict, the judge ordered them locked up, without food, water or heating for two days.

He ordered Penn bound and gagged, but not before Penn managed to address the jury, shouting, ”You are Englishmen, mind your Privilege, give not away your Right.”

One of the jurors, Edward Bushel, replied, “Nor shall we ever do!”

After two days deprived of food, water and liberty, the jury returned a ‘Not Guilty’ verdict, whereupon the judge fined them for contempt of court, refusing to release them until the fines were paid.

Edward Bushel, however, refused to pay the fine, and it was later ruled by a higher court that his detention was unlawful, on the basis that a jury could not be punished for reaching a verdict with which the judge disagreed.

This ruling, that a jury has the right to decide on a verdict according to their convictions, was deemed so fundamental, so central to the principles of the English legal system, that it was inscribed on a plaque which has long been affixed to the wall of the Old Bailey, The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales.

The Importance of Bushel’s Case Today

The importance of this principle was highlighted last year, during a five-week trial of climate activists from Burning Pink, who were accused of daubing the offices of the four major political parties with pink paint and symbolically cracked the glass of some windows.

During that trial, activists were able to give reasons and justifications for their actions, based around the urgency and seriousness of the climate emergency. Despite evidence that they did carry out the actions, the jury acquitted the twelve defendants on all but two of their 20 charges.

This represents a prime example of that right of a jury to decide on a verdict according to their convictions or conscience, as immortalised on that plaque at the Old Bailey itself.

The Backlash

Since then, however, events have taken a sinister turn. During several subsequent trials of more climate activists, Judge Silas Reid has ruled that they are not allowed to mention in court any of their reasons or justifications for their actions.

Without any context or background, the jury simply hear descriptions of people stopping traffic, carrying out criminal damage or other acts which make them sound like common criminals.

Defendants who have mentioned climate change or fuel poverty have been jailed for contempt of court, the jury dismissed and a new jury brought in to replace them. Three people were sentenced by Judge Reid to several weeks in prison.

What’s more, the judge also forbade defendants and their lawyers from reminding jurors of their right to acquit according to their conscience.

Understandably, a number of lawyers have expressed concern about this apparent miscarriage of justice. After all, if defendants are forbidden from telling the truth about their reasons for their actions, and jurors aren’t even allowed to know about their right to follow their conscience, how can justice be done?

It Gets Worse

A number of lawyers protested outside the court, and a group calling themselves the Fair Justice Project posted notices in the streets around the court making jurors aware of their right to acquit defendants based on their conscience.

In March this year, retired social worker Trudi Warner stood outside the juror’s entrance to the court holding a sign which read:

Jurors — You have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience

She was arrested by police for contempt of court and held in the cells for the rest of the day. When she was finally brought before Judge Reid at 5pm she was ordered to attend the Old Bailey on 4th April. However, the judge at the Old Bailey decided to refer the case to the Attorney General.

In solidarity, over the course of two days in May, 24 people including doctors, lawyers, a retired Detective Sergeant and a priest, sat outside the court holding similar signs, reading: “Jurors have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience”

All 24 of them have now been referred by Judge Reid to the Attorney General for contempt of court.

As one of the sign-holders, Revd Dr Sue Parfitt, a priest and retired psychotherapist, said:

“It’s a serious matter indeed if a jury feels unable to make decisions according to their conscience, just as it confounds the basis for the law in this land when defendants are prevented from telling the whole truth in court. Both rights must be defended.”

Given that Bushel’s case sets such a celebrated and (so far) inalienable legal precedent that it is overtly displayed on its own official plaque at The Old Bailey, how can it NOT be legal to display the principle elsewhere?

Why Is This Happening?

Although we don’t know for sure what is driving this apparent attack on justice by those whose very job it is to uphold it, a former Government lawyer, Tim Crosland, has conjectured that it could be at least in part due to the huge amount of money being poured into the legal system by the fossil fuel industry:

“A recent report revealed that the top City of London law firms have supported nearly £1.5TRILLION worth of fossil fuel transactions since 2018, money which infiltrates the legal system as a whole. Maybe that explains why judges aren’t trusting juries to decide who are the real criminals here?”

In an article written for the Daily Mail, former Home Secretary Priti Patel stated:

“I am committed to ensuring that the police have powers required to tackle the disruption caused by groups such as Extinction Rebellion and I will be looking at every opportunity available, including primary legislation, to ensure that there is a full suite of tools available to tackle this behaviour. We must defend ourselves against this attack on capitalism...”

Tufton Street Brexit Nexus is a coalition of climate denial organisations, fossil fuel interests, and right-wing think tank Policy Exchange, with close ties to most current Tory politicians, and a deep influence on a wide swathe of the mainstream media, including the Telegraph, Spectator, Times, Mail, Express and Sun.

Their agenda is to push profit and growth over people and planet. Through manipulating public opinion via both mainstream and social media, they exist largely to influence public support for the fossil fuel sector and to discredit the climate action movement.

It has been reported that a discredited Policy Exchange report, which painted the peaceful, non-violent climate activist group Extinction Rebellion as extremists and terrorists, was influential in drawing up the draconian and oppressive Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. This Act places severe restrictions on protest, criminalising many previously legal and peaceful actions.

I’ve talked recently about these attacks on our democracy in my article Totalitarian Britain — How Close is This Reality? In that article, I also addressed some of the steps being taken to mould the judiciary to the Government’s will by reducing the power of judges to reign in the Government’s attacks on democracy and human rights.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Policy Exchange also funds the Judicial Power Project, which seeks to further limit the accountability of Big Business and the Executive to the courts.

Last year, the previous Attorney General, Suella Braverman, was very vocal in condemning the European Convention on Human Rights and the UK Human Rights Act for the way in which they protect human rights. For politicians like Braverman, the less rights we the people have, the better.

At the time of writing, it remains to be seen how the current Attorney General will rule on the ‘Bushel 24’ but one thing is certain: our long-held and firmly established rights are under attack from many fronts. The next few months will be a critical time for all those who believe in freedom and democracy.