High Court Rules...

[morqthana]

Absolutely. Read it.

It doesn't mention vandalism.

 

[King Billy]

I'd like to live where organised criminals don't destroy important military equipment, target and harass legitimate business owners and feel its ok to cause millions of pounds worth of damage in the name of the cause.

Unles that military equpent is gong to be used to commit genoide, then it's a crime to prevent a greater crime.
I'm sure we would all agree that genocide is a greater crime than criminal damage.

....
Allied with the failure to convict over the Elbit Systems factory break-in where the argument made that committing a crime to prevent a greater crime was essentially accepted by a jury, civil disobedience has thankfully been successful in reigning in draconian state measures.

 

[King Billy]

Lawfully

Unil it is decided that Israel was committing genocide.

who has called them convicted criminals?

You did.

organised criminals

 

[King Billy]

There is extensive video footage from security cameras so there is no allegedly about it.

Extensive video footage of violence does not determine criminal actions, per se.

 

[motorbiking]

Untrue. My ideas, like yours, are set in stone.

Sabotage is a serious offence.too

National Security Act 2023

www.legislation.gov.uk

 

[Odds]

Unil it is decided that Israel was committing genocide.

Supporters of Israeli policy argue it isn't but find themselves on thin ice defending allegations of ethnic cleansing and war crimes, which have been documented and filmed on countless occasions over the past couple of years.

Did you know there are currently about 100 Israeli laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens in Israel and Palestinian residents of the occupied Palestinian territory? In 2018, Israel’s parliament adopted a controversial “Jewish nation-state” law defining the country as a Jewish homeland, further marginalising Palestinian citizens of Israel. The law stipulates that Jewish people have “an exclusive right to national self-determination” - conveniently ignoring Palestinian rights to self determination.

Last week, the Israeli cabinet passed measures aimed at expanding its power across the occupied West Bank, making it easier to seize Palestinian land illegally. This has come despite the 2024 UN resolution calling for an end to the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

There are about 1.9 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship as of 2019, according to Israel’s census. More than 750,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements built on Palestinian-owned land in the occupied West Bank. In very limited cases, Palestinians who hold residency in East Jerusalem can apply to obtain Israeli citizenship. They have to undergo a difficult naturalisation process, and a small number can apply via family links – but for most Palestinians in the illegally occupied territory, current Israeli law makes acquiring citizenship virtually impossible.

In 2022, Israeli outlet Haaretz reported that only 5% of Palestinians in East Jerusalem had successfully obtained Israeli citizenship since 1967. About 38% of Palestinian households fall below the poverty line in Israel, many well below it, according to Israel’s National Insurance Institute. Unemployment is also a crisis facing Palestinian citizens in Israel. Only 54% of Palestinian men and 36% of Palestinian women in Israel have jobs, after already low employment levels plummeted in tandem with the genocide in Gaza, according to figures from 2024.

The pro-Palestinian protests in this country are part of a larger effort to bring this apartheid to world attention until this gross denial of human rights is abolished.

 

[motorbiking]

Nothing can justify attacking military assets or people and businesses operating lawfully.

 

[MNW67]

Nothing can justify attacking military assets or people and businesses operating lawfully.

I have just been reading that the PA defendants put forward four defences and the judge instructed the jury to ignore them all.

 

[MNW67]

A discussion here of jury equity following the acquittals:

'Jury equity

Finally, it is worth looking at a principle of English and Welsh criminal law that has featured in some of the reporting and commentary: what is often referred to as “jury equity” or “jury nullification” – the right of a jury to acquit any defendant.

Even where a jury is sure of a defendant’s guilt, our system still does not and cannot compel a jury to find a defendant guilty. Since the 17th century, juries have been entitled to acquit a defendant for any reason. They are not explicitly told this – they are directed by the judge that they must reach verdicts based on the evidence they have heard. But a judge cannot direct, much less force, a jury to convict. So the jury retains the prerogative to acquit, irrespective of the strength of the case against a defendant, and the courts cannot interfere. This principle is embedded into our common law. One of the most common arguments in favour is the protection that the jury affords the individual from the power of the state. It means that, if you are tried under an unjust law, your fate is ultimately in the hands of your peers, who can mark their displeasure by an acquittal. There are arguments against, of course, not least that a perverse acquittal runs counter to the oath that every juror swears to return a verdict according to the evidence; that it effectively subjugates evidence-based decisions made in accordance with the law to a jury’s random personal morality. This tension is the reason that the courts have held that defence counsel are not permitted to address the jury on jury equity, or to invite jurors to acquit according to their conscience.

Juries do not give reasons for their verdicts, nor are they ever allowed to reveal what takes place during their deliberations. Understanding why a jury has – or has not – reached a particular verdict is therefore, even for those of us who have been in the courts for decades, an exercise in divination.'

Palestine Action – what just happened?

Yesterday, six Palestine Action protestors were acquitted by a jury of aggravated burglary, following a break-in at an Elbit Systems UK factory near Bristol in August 2024. Three of the six were al…

thesecretbarrister.com

 

[motorbiking]

I have just been reading that the PA defendants put forward four defences and the judge instructed the jury to ignore them all.

“The greater cause” has been a successful defence to criminal damage in other cases but no precedents as far as I am aware.

 

[morqthana]

Nothing can justify attacking military assets or people and businesses operating lawfully.

If I show that that is false, will you agree that sometimes it is justified to carry out such attacks, or will you attempt to deny my proof with bluster and ridicule?

 

[motorbiking]

I'm all ears, but maybe in return you could kill off your alternative ID, that is causing a brown out at Amazon Web Services.

 

[morqthana]

A discussion here of jury equity following the acquittals:

'Jury equity

Finally, it is worth looking at a principle of English and Welsh criminal law that has featured in some of the reporting and commentary: what is often referred to as “jury equity” or “jury nullification” – the right of a jury to acquit any defendant.

Even where a jury is sure of a defendant’s guilt, our system still does not and cannot compel a jury to find a defendant guilty. Since the 17th century, juries have been entitled to acquit a defendant for any reason. They are not explicitly told this – they are directed by the judge that they must reach verdicts based on the evidence they have heard. But a judge cannot direct, much less force, a jury to convict. So the jury retains the prerogative to acquit, irrespective of the strength of the case against a defendant, and the courts cannot interfere. This principle is embedded into our common law. One of the most common arguments in favour is the protection that the jury affords the individual from the power of the state. It means that, if you are tried under an unjust law, your fate is ultimately in the hands of your peers, who can mark their displeasure by an acquittal. There are arguments against, of course, not least that a perverse acquittal runs counter to the oath that every juror swears to return a verdict according to the evidence; that it effectively subjugates evidence-based decisions made in accordance with the law to a jury’s random personal morality. This tension is the reason that the courts have held that defence counsel are not permitted to address the jury on jury equity, or to invite jurors to acquit according to their conscience.

And this plaque is on a wall in the High Court:

But that doesn't stop the state from harassing people who repeat that principle in public.

It doesn't stop judges ordering the arrest of people who repeat that principle in public.

It doesn't stop judges jailing defendants for refusing to perjure themselves because they want to prevent juries from hearing things which might lead them to acquit according to their convictions.

 

[morqthana]

I'm all ears,

In war, the targets being attacked are very often quite lawful in the places where they are.

Sometimes those targets are attacked by citizens of the countries concerned - are you saying, for example, that nothing could have justified Jewish "saboteurs" in Germany in WW II attacking German military assets?

When countries are occupied, even if the occupying forces behave scrupulously according to the Hague and Geneva conventions, and related rules, and are in charge of a system with civilian police, and laws, and courts, there could quite easily be a lot of people whose view is "we don't want to be occupied, thank you very much". Are you saying that nothing could justify resistance fighters attacking occupying forces targets?

but maybe in return you could kill off your alternative ID, that is causing a brown out at Amazon Web Services.

I don't have one. How can your desire to deny truths which run counter to your prejudices be so strong? Is it a good characteristic in a lawyer?

 

[motorbiking]

In war,

Who are we at war with?

or are you suggesting that the PA members are enlisted combatants fighting legitimate targets?

In which case, they commit an offence:

Foreign Enlistment Act 1870

An Act to regulate the conduct of Her Majesty’s Subjects during the Existence of Hostilities between Foreign States with which Her Majesty is at peace.

www.legislation.gov.uk