Today is a sad, sad day for justice-not a word to be incorporated in the same sentence including court/s. Today has shown that the Scales of Justice might as well be removed from the top of the Old Bailey and weighed in for scrap as the courts have, without doubt, bent to the will of this corrupt, lying, cheating, all fabricating government.
The Rampton case has held the interest of many fora long time as this cruel smoking ban has smashed whatever equanimity there might have been in one of our secure mental institutions. Because it is the patients home they should be allowed to smoke-after all, smoking is a great pacifier for the mentally ill!
Because it is also a 'workplace' the law states that there can be no smoking-but this is a special set of circumstances altogether.
The Court of Appeal has ruled against the patients claim that they should have an indoor smoking area. Why should they have an indoor smoking area? Simple, Rampton is a "secure" hospital therefore no patients are allowed in the grounds-not even escorted by a willing member of staff for a fag!
To deny these unfortunate people the right ( the Human Right ) to smoke is totally inhuman. It is obvious that the appeal court has been 'bought' by this government as was the wondrous 'public consultation' that aided the implementation of the smokeban two years ago.
Justice Silber & Pill took the view that security was the main issue thus over-ruled the complaint last year.
I am of the opinion that the security argument was a very weak argument but enough to carry the judgement.
This time round the appellants had a mountain of information to go to war with, no stone had been left unturned on the appellants behalf and this is why, in my humble opinion, it took 6 months for the bewigged, supposedly learned men to pass judgement-they couldn't find a way out!
This government have lost their power in the eyes of the people already, the ballot box will confirm their utter rout in the near future. They are so bloody minded that they cannot possibly back down from a law that was brought in on the back of lies, fabrications, statistical manipulations and paid for consultations. They cannot prove that SHS kills, nor can they prove this imbecilic total ban has saved a life-everything is based on estimates tailored to suit these wunch of bankers.
As for the poor patients in Rampton, you have my deepest sympathy and I would not blame you at all if dissent was shown. Why should you be denied the one simple pleasure you have left?
The the outgoing government I say this, "you will go down in history as biggest bunch of turds in the history of British Politics."
To the incoming government I say this to David Cameron, " you perhaps don't smoke, but millions of people do and you reap the taxation benefits thereof. How can you sit back and advocate Human Rights, Charters etc yet watch this spiteful, malicious debacle continue-especially now we have seen the courts firmly in the pockets of governments!"
The time has come for all men/women to become freemen of the land
2 comments:
Extract from the judgement. What does it mean?
Is the discrimination on one of the grounds prohibited by Article 14? The one relied on by the appellants is "other status". That, according to the Strasbourg jurisprudence, will include discrimination on the basis of a personal characteristic possessed by the person in question:
"The Court first points out that Article 14 prohibits, within the ambit of the rights and freedoms guaranteed, discriminatory treatment having as its basis or reason a personal characteristic ('status') by which persons or groups of persons are distinguishable from each other.": Kjeldsen, Madsen and Pedersen v. Denmark [1976] 1 EHRR 711, at paragraph 56.
It seems indisputable that a mental illness or other mental disability falls within the scope of the term "personal characteristic", as Mr Bowen for the appellants contends. The remaining question, therefore, under this head is whether such discrimination can be justified and is proportionate, proportionality operating in this context just as it does elsewhere in the Convention: see Belgian Linguistic Case (No. 2) [1968] 1 EHRR 252, at 284, paragraph 10. Article 14 will be violated if there is no reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realised. That is a topic which I have already addressed earlier when dealing with the Article 8 issues, and my conclusion is the same, namely that the failure to exempt secure mental hospitals from the prohibition on smoking indoors, with its real-life consequences, is not proportionate to the aim which it is sought to realise. That being so, I conclude that there has also been a breach of Article 14 as a result of regulation 10(3).
The position of the Trust seems to me to be somewhat different. It has no power now to allow smoking within the enclosed parts of Rampton Hospital because of the terms of regulation 10(3). It could allow those detained at Rampton to smoke outside in the grounds, but I am persuaded by the Trust's evidence that the extent of staff supervision required for dangerous patients to be allowed into the grounds in order to smoke and the high cost thereof makes the Trust's decision not to allow that to happen a reasonable and proportionate one. Moreover, the Trust owes a duty of care to those who are patients in Rampton, who are by definition mentally ill and in consequence may be vulnerable, and that too must be weighed in the scales when deciding whether its decision is proportionate. For those reasons, I would not regard the Trust as being in breach of Article 8 or Article 14 of the Convention.
It follows that, for my part, I would allow these appeals in respect of regulation 10 of the Exemption Regulations but dismiss them insofar as they relate to the decision of the Trust.
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2009/795.html
Prisons were exempted from the bill as being places of residence. Prisoners are allowed to smoke in their cell, as long as it is a designated smoking cell. A handful of prisons (not mentioned in the media) have gone totally smokefree, nearly all prisons have forbidden staff from smoking at work, and the Prison Officers Association are pushing for a change in the law to protect staff from SHS!! Having said that however, most prisons let inmates smoke in their cell as it is where they live.
The problem is that Rampton is not classed as a prison but a secure mental health unit, a hospital which comes under the NHS. The anti smoking law forbids smoking anywhere in hospitals.
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