EU superstate laws strip Britain of its Magna Carta rights

Writes JACOB REES-MOGG

THE European Union Arrest Warrant (EAW) does not enhance the United Kingdom’s security but does risk miscarriages of justice and undermines centuries of legal protection.

It is obviously sensible the crossing of a border ought not to protect a criminal from the consequences of his crime. Extradition treaties date back at least to 1259 BC when the Hittite King Hattusili the Third and Ramesses the Second signed a treaty of “peace and brotherhood for all time”. They have become more commonplace as international travel has become easier and sensibly streamlined.Unfortunately, the EAW goes too far as it takes control away from a person’s own country’s courts and gives it to foreign nationals who may have different approaches to justice.

The first principle of extradition has historically been the concept of dual criminality. In Germany it is illegal to be rude about foreign heads of state and the German Chancellor, Angel Merkel, has decided to allow a comedian to be prosecuted for making jokes about the Turkish President.

In the UK no such law exists yet if Mr Boehmermann had fled here to escape this preposterous attack on free speech we would have had no choice but to surrender him had an EAW been issued. All that is required is that the matter is criminal in the country where the warrant is issued and it is in one of 32 broad categories of crime.A further principle is the justice available in the country is of similar quality to at home. This is simply not true across the EU. The individual members have different legal systems and abilities to hold people without trial.

Jacob Rees-Mogg with Nigel FarageGETTY

Jacob Rees-Mogg with Nigel Farage ahead of a Bruges Group press conference about the EAW

Leaving the EU would restore our historic rights

Jacob Rees-Mogg

At the point of accession even the European Commission recognised problems with the justice systems in Croatia and Romania including dishonesty in the Croatian police force. These disparities become arguments for those who favour further integration to say that more centralised European Union control is needed, so failure and injustice become motors for the European superstate.In England and later the United Kingdom, Habeas Corpus is a right of great antiquity. Anyone who is arrested must be brought before a court but this does not apply in continental countries.

This has led to people like Andrew Symeou spending ten months in a Greek prison for a crime he did not commit. British citizens can now be held in foreign jails for extended periods and denied their common law rights because the EAW is superior in European law. Likewise, trial by jury is not standard practice in the rest of the EU so the Magna Carta right to trial by peers is removed.

Crucially, the EAW is not subject to our own jurisdiction but to that of the European courts.  The Government has legislated in an effort to stop trivial cases involving an EAW such as the man extradited for stealing a piglet or the theft of two car tyres – but it is not our courts that will decide the validity of the restriction but the European Union ones.

When it was introduced the EAW was advertised as a means of capturing terrorists and paedophiles.

Instead it has been used, as in the King case, to persecute parents who are unhappy with the NHS treatment their child was receiving or to arrest a tipsy driver.

Fundamental protections, the assumption of innocence, trial by jury and the right to appear before a court have all been sacrificed on the altar of the EU superstate.

Britons have been extradited to countries with third world prisons and justice systems. Leaving the EU would restore our historic rights.

 

http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/674777/Jacob-Rees-Mogg-EU-superstate-laws-Magna-Carta-rights-Britain

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