TRIAL BY JURY UNDER THREAT

PAUL BEARD (Letters, Issue 433) claims that it is laughable to blame the
European Union for the loss of trial by jury. He is presumably unaware of
“corpus juris”, the fully documented EU plan for a new legal system that
sweeps away not only trial by jury but also habeas corpus and so allows
imprisonment anywhere in the EU for up to nine months without charge or
trial. This will also end the separation of the judiciary from the state.

These are vital freedoms. Rather than laugh because it has not happened
yet, Mr Beard might worry that the EU has not produced such a substantial
legal document for it to lie mouldering on a shelf in Brussels.

He might also worry about a new offence, sedition against the EU. I
recognise no such offence, for we British have never been asked whether we
wish to be citizens of the Union, or wish to accept the unspecified
responsibilities of that unpleasant prospect.

As British subjects we remain free to write, argue, plot and, as a last
resort, fight against this new evil empire that has crept silently into our
midst, usurping our laws and institutions.

Idris R Francis
Petersfield, England

IN April last year the European Commission's Directorate- General XX
presented a detailed “corpus juris” plan at a seminar in Spain for an
audience of 140 European jurists. The press were not invited, no communique
was issued and the Spanish press gave it no coverage.

Corpus Juris is a structured plan to set up a European public prosecutor on
the continental inquisitorial model with overriding jurisdiction throughout
the territories of the Union. Habeas corpus and trial by an independent
jury will be abolished. How do we know? Torquil Dick-Erikson, the British
journalist who spilt the beans, was invited to attend by the Italian
delegation, who knew him as a comparative jurist.

Those of us who keep an eye on the devious methods used by the Commission
and the British government to slip things in without our noticing wondered
how this would be done. When, just before the summer recess, Jack Straw,
the British home secretary, announced that he was thinking of ending the
criminal defendant’s right to trial by jury, as this was expensive and
outdate, we had our answer. No big bang, just the gentle drip drip that has
worked so successfully in moving us from the Common Market to the European
Union.

PL Barden
Stroud, England

Checked-by: Richard Lake