Safe Speed Forums

Both applicants lost their case 15 votes to 2, more news as it comes in I guess...

_________________
Carl Prescott

Full judgment can be read here:

http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view. ... n=hudoc-en

_________________
Carl Prescott

A bad day for justice

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6251936.stm

BBC News, Friday, 29 June 2007, 10:05 UK

Motorists lose speed camera case

Two British motorists who took their legal fight against speed cameras to Europe have lost their case.

Idris Francis, of Petersfield, Hants, and Gerard O'Halloran, from London, argued that current rules forced car owners to incriminate themselves.

They said human rights were breached by making a car's owner name the driver if the vehicle is caught speeding.

But judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg voted 15 to two to reject their argument.

"In my view it is a perverse decision," Mr Francis said. "I am shocked and amazed."

Penalty points

Both men have separately claimed a right to silence after their cars were caught speeding.

Company director Mr Francis refused to say who was behind the wheel of his vehicle as it was photographed doing 47mph in a 30mph zone.

He was fined and had three points put on his licence.

Mr O'Halloran had said he was driving his vehicle but later retracted, saying he had a right to silence and protection from self-incrimination. Magistrates fined him and added penalty points.

The men took their case to the European court last September with the support of human rights group Liberty.

Judges acknowledged that both men had been faced compulsion to provide information, but threw out their claim that the right to remain silent and the right not to incriminate oneself are "absolute rights".

Their judgement noted that people "who choose to keep and drive cars" have implicitly "accepted certain responsibilities" under UK law.

This includes an obligation to name the driver of a vehicle after a road traffic offence has been committed.

The judges also pointed out that UK law made it clear that no offence has been committed if a car owner can prove that he or she did not know, and could not be expected to know, who was driving the vehicle.

Mr Francis said after the verdict: "The fight for freedom goes on. We can't allow the tyrants, who are taking away our rights, to succeed. They have to be stopped."

yup, was just coming to post this myself, rather gutted to say the least, have to wait and see what the official word is from those involved in the case to see what the next step is, if any.

Cross-posted from PePiPoo:

...some interesting comments in the dissenting opinions (still reading, but this jumped out):

_________________
Carl Prescott

Just reading the above you get the feeling the judge is on our side. I also liked the bit that followed:



If the government continues to bring speed limits down the way have been and more and more people get fined then, surely the government should be questioned by the authorities. So where do we go from here?

_________________
Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

There are two threads on this subject. Can the Moderators merge them as this is an important subject. Other thread:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14935

Thanks.

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Very sad but to be expected. In cases like this they always go in favour of the state even in the face of logic and the law.

The entire way the fixed penalty system works completely goes against the last 900 years of criminal justice in the united Kingdom.

It basically rests on the idea of convicting people with bearly a shred of evidence. The notion of 'tell us who did it or we will just slap the charge on you' is totally against the principles of our justice system. Imagine what would happen if they used this for other offences?

'We know that you know who committed that robbery so either tell us or we will send you down for it regardless of who it was' Madness!!

Easy to see which judges have shares in serco isnt it?

The only place to "go" now is onto the streets, like everyone should have in the first place.
Instead of talking a fight we should have been fighting it like i said at the start many years ago.
It was always going to be too much to expect a ruling to come down against the state.
All this ruling shows is how high up the corruption goes, and the message is clear: You WILL be done, we are the law, we wont listen to you, to sense or to reason. Tough on you.

_________________
"Safety" Scamera Partnerships;
Profitting from death and misery since 1993.

Believe nothing- Question everything.

There's no merge threads facility (probably a good thing). I'll lock the other thread.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

The press conference broke up pretty quickly when the news came in.

Frankly I'm shocked. I regard the right to silence as ancient, necessary and violated by S172 procedure. It doesn't have a great deal to do with speed cameras - unless speed camera money provided the impetus to secure the verdict.

The speed camera fight goes on.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I know he's dissapointed, but tyrants
Methinks Mr Francis needs a visit to North Korea or Zimbabwe where someone can push his 'perspective reset' button in order to recalibrate his sense of scale and proportion.

_________________
Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Democracy in this country is dead, this is just one more symptom of it. The government has realised that it can get away with doing absolutely anything it wants. If an online petition is created and signed by loads of people, they just send us all an email telling us we're all wrong.

If we complain about a law, they just say that the correct process was followed in passing that law, therefore we must accept it. They don't even feel the need to justify that what they are doing is right.

back on topic now...

is there any further appeal process, or is that it now?

_________________
COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

I hereby declare the last two pages off topic!

I can see the logic in the reason they gave for the ruling, but I am not certain it is valid; does owning a car really constitute a voluntary suspension of rights? Is there anything else we do voluntarily that requires us to implicitly suspend our rights as citizens?

Anyone want to go back on topic?

What has the ECHR judgement really done?

I understand it as they have judged that driving a motor vehicle is a voluntary act that is subject to certain restrictions and legislation further to the 'right to remain silent' under the Human Rights act. I don't really agree with their decision but 15 to 2 is pretty damning.

I think that Idris is a fair but older and has seen a lot of this world. Even at 45 I have seen freedoms eroded. There was a time I rode a motorbike with out a crash hat. When you could drive unimpeded through London. visit stone henge and touch the stones! You could even have a street party or march to Parliament. You could walk down downing street. We have allowed ANPR to become a monster, Id cards is next. We need a tax disk even if the car is safe on the drive. He also said that he felt a sense of shame that his generation have thrown out our freedoms so easily. Idris was very regret full that he wants to fight on for freedoms but his doctors tell him not to. Some how I feel that he will fight on even if it does kill him.

_________________
Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Although I am as disappointed as everyone else with the ruling, I do think that had the ruling gone in our favour things could have ended up worse. This was discussed a month or so back in another thread but if speed camera offences had become civil offences, then I reckon we'd be seeing FPNs in 3 figures sent straight to the Registered Keeper with much lower prosecution thresholds. There is no way that every single Gatso would suddenly be disabled and removed overnight. Far more concerning is the failure to uphold the constitutional right-to-silence. I do worry now what the future will bring, and not just in motoring laws

_________________
Why can't we just use Common Sense?

I'm 47 and seen quite a bit of it too. Europe, Africa, South America. Ever travel to Eastern Europe under the old regime, along the corridor through East Germany into Berlin perhaps. Best make sure you are out by the required time



Still rather petty 'freedoms' when one considers what real tyrants get up to though aren't they?

_________________
Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Absolutely, but it doesn’t mean we should become complacent with our authorities, we shouldn't give them an inch. Granted the word tyrant might be a bit strong.