"... merely being asked to nullify the election and remit the case back to the proper arbiters: An electorate in full posession of the facts. Carmichael could, conceivably, stand again and be elected if the good folk of Orkney and Shetland deem the admitted lie to be insufficient grounds to change their vote."
It is a suggestion echoed in the mainstream media yesterday. Writing about the election court case for the Scotsman, Euan McColm asks:
"And so, on Monday, for the first time since 1965, the Election Court will sit in Edinburgh, under the joint chairmanship of judges Lady Paton and Lord Matthews. At stake is Mr Carmichael’s political future. Should they agree that, yes, his actions do merit a re-run of the election in the constituency, it seems unthinkable that he would make a credible candidate. Who would bet against the SNP taking the seat?"
A perfectly fair point on the credibility front -- but a critical point of detail is missing. If the judges find the case against Mr Carmichael is made out, he will not be allowed to stand in the subsequent by-election in the northern isles. Under section 160 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, if Carmichael is found to be personally guilty of illegal practices - and making a false statement under section 106 is an illegal practice - he will not only be kicked out of his seat but barred from from being elected to the House of Commons or holding any other elective office for three years. That's pretty tough justice.
He had the choice though, didn't he?
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, if he had chosen to put his hands up, say mea culpa and resign his seat voluntarily, he could have stood again in a subsequent by-election. I'm no expert, but several people mentioned that as a viable option rather than allowing the case to go to court.
Indeed; if he had taken the Chiltern Hundreds, nothing would have prevented him from presenting himself to the people in the subsequent re-election.
DeleteCan he still be elevated to the House of Lords if found guilty?
ReplyDeleteThe bar is only for elective office. I would be surprised, however, if anyone would be stampeding to enoble a man who had just been deprived of office for illegal practices.
DeleteCan he still be elevated to the House of Lords though? They are not so fussy about criminality !
ReplyDeleteHis Party has already, before the Trial, thumbed the Noses at his Constituents!
ReplyDeletehttps://commonspace.scot/articles/2012/alistair-carmichael-appointed-home-affairs-spokesman-for-lib-dems-despite-frenchgate-saga
You'd think the media would have known about the bar on standing for (re-)election after what happened to Phil Woolas. This is the decision on his attempt to get a judicial review against the Election Court's finding: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2010/3169.html
ReplyDeleteWorth reading, especially from this point onwards:
"ISSUE 2: DID MR WOOLAS MAKE FALSE STATEMENTS OF FACT IN RELATION TO A CANDIDATE'S PERSONAL CHARACTER OR CONDUCT?"
Thanks Mark. This is a complex area of law. But we've an overstimulated and gey forgetful public sphere.
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ReplyDeleteAnother extract from the decision cited above:
ReplyDelete"The Election Court on the basis of the findings it had made, to which we will refer in more detail, interpreted s.106 by reference primarily to The North Division of the County of Louth (1911) 6 O'M and H 103 (the decision of a parliamentary election court sitting in Ireland before the grant of its independence) and Fairbairn v Scottish National Party [1979] SC 393 (a decision of Lord Ross sitting in the Outer House). The Election Court concluded at paragraphs 31-35 that a false statement of fact might relate to the personal character of a candidate, even though it also related to his public or political character, conduct or position. A statement in relation to a candidate's political position could do so, if the false statement related directly to the personal character or conduct in the sense of amounting to an attack on his "honour, veracity or purity". The last words were taken from a passage in the judgment of Gibson J in North Louth at page 163:
"A politician for his public conduct may be criticised, held up to obloquy: for that the statute gives no redress; but when the man beneath the politician has his honour, veracity and purity assailed, he is entitled to demand that his constituents shall not be poisoned against him by false statements containing such unfounded imputations."
...
However, a statement about a political position can go beyond being a statement about his political position and become a statement that is a statement about the personal character or conduct of a candidate."
There seem to be several main questions for the court to answer in the Carmichael case:
1. Does the legislation cover situations where a candidate is alleged to have made a false statement about his own personal character or conduct?
2. If it does, did what Carmichael say amount to a false statement about his own personal character or conduct?
3. If not, was it was a false statement that went 'beyond being a statement about his political position and become a statement that is a statement about [Carmichael's] personal character or conduct'?
4. If it was a false statement in terms of 2 or 3 above, was it made for the purpose of affecting the return of any candidate at the election?
Note: it doesn't matter that what Carmichael said was said before the election -
"That legislation is now reflected in the Representation of the People Act 1983 (the 1983 Act). One of the provisions, s. 106(1), originally enacted in 1895, makes a person guilty of an illegal practice if before or during an election for the purpose of affecting the return of any candidate at the election he makes or publishes "any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate's personal character or conduct", unless the person can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing and did believe the statement to be true."
..."A perfectly fair point on the credibility front -- but a critical point of detail is missing. If the judges find the case against Mr Carmichael is made out, he will not be allowed to stand in the subsequent by-election in the northern isles. Under section 160 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, if Carmichael is found to be personally guilty of illegal practices - and making a false statement under section 106 is an illegal practice - he will not only be kicked out of his seat but barred from from being elected to the House of Commons or holding any other elective office for three years. That's pretty tough justice."
ReplyDeletebut don't worry, he has committed a far more serious crime in PeatWorrierland.: actually being, quite wantonly and openly male.
as such, he will not, of course, along with that half of the population, be eligible to stand for the Scottish parliament.
Hear blundering, desperate, poor wee Willie Rennie's cries for the attention of the PeatWorrier fashionistas
"look here, Lib-Dem women only short-lists me tooo, me tooo I'm a PeatWorrier style perverter of democracy I have taken it upon myself to prohibit men of ability from Holyrood and seek to debase the democratic process before it even begins so as to be in lock step with the Imperial Peatworrier approved army of clones on the march to a parliament of grim gender balanced wretchedness born of women only candidates.
Another great victory for the PeatWorrier Way of aberrant, unwarranted control of parliament to god knows or cares what end, as long as it is gender balanced to Imperial PeatWorrier satisfaction.
PeatWorrier : weakening the Scottish parliament's membership, undermining its credibility and forsaking democracy for mindless gender balance, all for the sake of backward dogma .
Well done Colin, I'm at a loss for words...
DeleteAnd of course an anagram for 'peatworrierland' is 'A Pretrial Downer' (paging Mr Carmichael) .
DeleteMay I put myself forward as 'A Portlier Warden' for this exciting new realm?
I like the line about "Imperial PeatWorrier satisfaction." I don't really know what it means but it sounds filthy.
DeleteAnd also the faint whiff of Imperial Leather soap. Gets everything out.
Deleteso, just to clarify matters...
DeleteCome PeatWorrierland being excluded from parliament for three years having been found guilty of criminal malfeasance in public office is tough justice,
but being barred from standing for election to parliament in the first place, though at that point being a blameless man of good character, just for actually being a blameless man of good character is the not future basis of an unjust and unprincipled travesty of a cod- democracy, but is, in fact,the sole basis of our glorious future ?
@ Colin Thomasson.
DeleteI feel that "PeatWorrierland" is under attack. Although I'm not a nationalist of any kind, I have a visitor's visa to Peatworrierland and I feel protective about the place's reputation.
So let me assure you, Colin, that you can hang out in Peatworrierland and still oppose all-women shortlists, as I do. They are profoundly patronising. Remember the Blair babes? The very same mentality - that women MPs will be smiling, helpful automatons who will never challenge authority or rock the boat - is behind all-women shortlists. Can you imagine the look on Rosa Luxemburg's face if she was told that she needed help getting in to power and that she should be grateful for some paternalistic assistance?
So, to cut a long story short Colin, you're right.
So the tens of thousands of men (including elected local councillors) who got elected on men only shortlists, and who were elected by men only electorates up until 1918, may only have got there because of paternalistic assistance? I wonder how many of the 'great men' of history, let alone less exalted men, would have achieved their positions if they didn't have the help provided by thousands of years of men only competitors. Us men have had the advantage of men only pretty much everything for thousands of years. In recent years, in a very few instances, the women that we've collectively held back for thousands of years, have been given a bit of a boost to help them to catch up to us men, who've enjoyed an unfair advantage over women for thousands of years. The response from some people (including quite a lot of women) to making things a tiny little bit fairer after thousands of years of unfairness, is quite entertaining. If you deliberately hobble a group of people for centuries, is it unfair to give a very small subset of that group a bit of a push to go a tiny bit of the way towards making up for the thousands of years of hobbling?
DeleteColin, do you fancy dealing with this one?
Deletetychy: 'Blair babes'. The SNP equivalent could be the 'Surgin' Sturgeons' They could have a cake stall in peatworrierland, surely that couldn't offend anyone? The Tartan Army could have a ginger nuts stand.
DeleteI offer only this statistic. Even after the use of all women shortlists on a one-off basis in 2016 for a small number of races where the incumbent was standing down, men constitute 59% of the slate of constituency candidates the SNP has nominated. On behalf of aggrieved wanton and open men everywhere - and being an open and wanton male myself, I am well placed to do so - I don't think the distaff side and their imperialistic fashionista fellow travellers have achieved men's total exclusion from parliament just yet.
DeleteMark Murray
Deleteyou who would redress past wrongs by substituting present justice for equally harmful but even worse stupidity make me despair
.
Do not leave aside the fact that only "Men of Property" were eligible to vote let alone aspire to stand for election to parliament from the reign King Henry VI of England in 1432 when it was established that only people owning property worth 40 shillings or more could vote, until 1918 when the Representation of the People Act "gave" all men of 21 and older and women of 30 and over a vote. amended in 1928 to give women the vote at 21 , and that in Scotland, there had in fact never been universal suffrage or indeed any suffrage for the Three Estates...and now, now that at last we have a parliament, and universal suffrage, it turns out that, according to the politicians that run it, the right to stand is at their whim, to be given or withheld at random, according to whether they happen to approve of the gender balance that the electoraste have, in their ignorance and stupidity, chosen.
Worse, it may even be that the present leadership are so far up their own backsides that they actually do believe in their inane slogans such as "Independence in the EU " about as meaningful as freedom in prision, and prefer to hand control to the modern equivalent of the Three Estates in Bruxelles and to surrender our sovereign right to self determination to corporate control so that they can fight their battles over politically correct gender balance and climate change to their hearts content in their perfectly meaningless parliament in the modern superstate of corporate perfection where even the votes of the politically correct, perfectly gender balanced windmill powerd wisdom shall count for nothing, because we did not fight for freedom and democracy.
so go on, play away and damn us to oblivion.
your ignorant wilful corruption of democracy has already won, the depth of our democracy runs no deeper than the whim of the party leader and our ambition runs only to creating a meaningless gender balance of politically correct whimpering EU toadies.
The battle for freedom is lost, you won, we have PeatWorrierland .
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DeleteCrikey. Did a ladyperson nick your parking space once? There's nothing undemocratic about making a few token gestures towards undoing thousands of years of lousy treatment. Untwist your (no doubt virile, undoubtedly masculine, possibly heated) underwear Colin and apply some leeches - always helpful when one is suffering the symptoms of an excess of yellow bile.
DeleteGood stuff Colin, and I've got your back. Upon reflection, though, your tactic of writing sentences which run on for hundreds of words isn't working in our favour. So best leave this to me.
Delete@ Mark Murray.
You write that "we've" collectively held back women for thousands of years. You apparently think that women, if left in a state of nature, will be always powerless, ineffective, and second-class. Henceforth, you are led to the conclusion that women have to be helped. They are collectively like a failing business which has to be subsidised.
So you're not a feminist then. In fact you're the very opposite of a feminist. You want the powerlessness of women - or rather, your twisted fantasy of it - to be permanently stamped upon our political system.
But I'm writing about your idealism. In practice, the sort of women promoted by all women shortlists are latter-day Blair babes: smiling, brainless weather presenters who voted en-masse for the Iraq war because a powerful man told them to do so. If they'd actually fought their way into power with a bit of revolutionary spirit... well, then they wouldn't be Blair babes.
That's pretty tough justice.
ReplyDeleteNot tough enough IMHO.
Could he resign now, thus rendering the legal process redundant and then stand agin for the seat. I don't think he could win but at least he would have the 3 yeart ban.
If he does wi n the case, he is a dead man walking.
He could. If he took the Chiltern Hundreds, there would be no bar on standing in the subsequent by-election.
DeleteMany thanks for the clarification, Peat Worrier.
ReplyDeleteNo bother. It is an important point.
DeleteWhatever happened to the internal House of Commons standards committee enquiry on Carmichael? That was to a simpler and lower threshold than this law case and the facts are not in doubt. Just how long does it take the HoC to establish that Carmichael's behaviour was not acceptable?
ReplyDelete