Human Rights Defenders (Go to: http://onevoice.freeservers.com/level2/case.htm)
One Voice One People
MISSION STATEMENT
OVOP's mission is to play an active role in the global quest by ordinary people for the true implementation of human rights and fundamental freedoms as set out in the United Nations Universal Human Rights Declaration and Covenants, thus empowering individuals to have a voice in promoting human rights, fundamental freedoms, and the advancement of democratic institutions and processes that respect and implement the UN Declaration and Covenants.
In addressing this mission OVOP will take a wholistic view of the issues, looking not just at immediate cases of human rights abuse but will also seek to understand the chains of input factors that give rise to abuse. OVOP notes the following.
1. The principles and rights set out in the Universal Human Rights Declaration were adopted by many UN Member states as legally binding international instruments known as the International Covenants, and entered into force in 1976.
2. OVOP is a non-party-political, independent, non-profit organisation for the implementation of Human Rights and is dedicated to act according to the "Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognised Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms".
3. OVOP is very concerned about increases in:
a) Poverty (Poverty itself is a violation of numerous basic human rights).
b) Injustice (Injustice is caused by deterioration of democratic processes, corrupt judiciary and legal systems, inconsistent application of the law and refusal to fulfill well-established obligations).
c) Violence and crime (Today's human rights abuses are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts).
d) Illnesses and disabilities (Many are a direct result of denials of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all human beings to safe working conditions, even more are indirectly so linked).
e) Environmental pollution and destruction. (Consequences of the ignorance and disregard of the human rights which are embodied in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights).
(OVOP notes where the ultimate responsibility sits and that, despite the UN's comprehensive legally binding legislation, violation of human rights occurs not only in "underdeveloped" countries but also in "developed" countries. Human Rights legislation is governed by the United Nations but ultimately controlled and managed by the various national governments.)
4. OVOP agrees with the United Nation's warning "that the denial of Human Rights and the fundamental freedoms not only is an individual tragedy, but also creates conditions of social and political unrest, sowing the seed of violence and conflict within and between societies and nations."
5. OVOP is committed to promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms and to contribute to the promotion and advancement of democratic societies, institutions and processes in that, OVOP will:
a) Carry out its own worldwide research and investigation campaigns to find out from individual people their understanding of Human Rights and also their concerns regarding failure to apply these Rights.
b) Assist individuals who rights have been violated. OVOP will support the individual victim who intends to bring the violations before the International Human Rights Committee.
c) Explore the non-application of Human Rights in developed countries by gathering the facts from victims of human rights abuse, present the evidence to the UN and to the global community and demand a satisfactory solution as set out in the International Covenants.
d) Prove to the UN and the world governments that Human Rights are issues which most people take very seriously and that the individual person tries very hard to protect his or her rights, the rights of their children and the future generations.
e) Undertake education campaigns through various channels including schools, colleges and universities to:
i. Explain the meaning and the application of Human Rights in the life of an individual person .
ii. Make people aware of the alarming implications should their Human Rights be further eroded or abolished via national legislation.
iii. Advise the individual person not only about his or her responsibility, duty, obligation but also about the rights as a citizen of the global community to request that the International Human Rights are implemented and made part of the law in each Country
iv. Inform people that "The global quest for commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights involves everyone. The campaign relies heavily on thousands of dedicated individuals and citizens' groups who often risk their lives for the cause. Increased involvement in the defence of human rights helps to build an environment where freedom and dignity are expected and respected. It is up to each and every one of us - from Presidents and Prime Ministers to business executives, farmers and students - to work toward this dream." (United Nations Publication)
v. Make people aware that without respect for Human Rights, Freedom and Justice for everyone there will be no Peace on Earth!
6. OVOP remind that the ideal and the objectives of Human Rights are only achievable if the various national Governments comply with the International Covenants they have agreed to put into force and:
a) Protect all persons from being subjected to torture and other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
b) Place into their national law the international Human Rights instruments they have ratified so providing equality before the law, protection by the law , and to thus strive to deliver justice and create "freedom from fear and want" for every person.
7. OVOP demand that the UN:
a) Persistently act to ensure UN member states, who signed to ratify the International Covenants, honor their signature and implement these rights in their national law codes and statutes, or revoke their signature and so withdraw from these International Covenants.
b) Invite all the UN member states to reconsider their position, as regards to their legal obligation as a result of them having signed the International Covenants.
c) Terminate the Human Rights Committee membership of Governments who revoke their signature or refuse to comply with their legal obligation to implement the International Covenants into their law. Any related privileges under the International Covenants, (e.g., the right to consult, advise and the right to vote on or about any Human Rights issues) must also be cancelled.
d) Expose countries which do not fully acknowledge and adhere to these principals of Human Rights.
8. OVOP will consult with Governments and the United Nations to assist and support the implementation of the proclaimed rights and freedoms into the law of the countries who have signed the covenants.
9. OVOP request that no more funds to be wasted to create yet more "paper treaties/covenants" because 50 years after the Human Rights Declaration the UN member states still do not comply with the existing International Covenants.
10. OVOP believes that in the absence of a real intent to implement these treaties the people on this planet are being misled. People are loosing faith and trust in promised rights and freedoms. For the future of mankind it would be disastrous if today's upcoming generation question the validity of international treaties/ covenants because these promises have proved to be nothing more than empty words.
How did ONE VOICE - ONE PEOPLE Human Rights Defenders (OVOP) start
ONE VOICE - ONE PEOPLE Human Rights Defenders is an international, independent, non-political, non-profit, Non-Government Organisation (NGO), founded by Brigitte Straulino and Erica Studer as a direct result of the human rights violations they personally suffered.
They researched the issues, contacting others, thinking at first that their experience with the Australian legal system had to be rare or even unique. But they discovered that many of other people had suffered similar violation and injustice.
It became increasingly clear that a mass of ordinary people suffer, going through appalling traumatic experiences with no help offered, as no equality before the law exists and a basic right of access to natural justice is ignored.
Having suffered the trauma of such violations themselves, and now aware that similar suffering had to be very widespread Brigitte and Erica sought ways of helping others and of letting the world know the extent of the heartbreaking experiences so many people were being subjected to. The outcome is the developing One Voice - One People, Human Rights Defenders which is funded only via member's subscriptions and donations.
ONE VOICE ONE PEOPLE is an independent, non-party-political, non-profit organisation committed to defend human rights and fundamental freedoms and to contribute to the promotion and advancement of democratic societies, institutions and processes.
(C) One Voice One People. Last updated: March 2000
Letters Contact OVOP
As a temporary measure FLAC (For Legally Abused Citizens) will forward mail:
OVOP c/o FLAC NSW P.O.Box 1199 Maroubra Junction NSW 2035 AUSTRALIA
(comment by PDM: I suggest u also look at this link... very interesting reading;).
http://onevoice.freeservers.com/legal/auslaw.htm
Monday, January 12, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Injured Workers Comments
Thanks PDM the issue I have at the moment is that I have been through the process up to the stage that my claim for loss of earnings and pain and suffering has been rejected as in the opinion of the " totally unbiased assessment" of the medical panel after a one hour consultation that my injury is only 4%.
It has been reported that the : "totally unbiased assessment" of the medical panel is usually unscrupulously LOW in PERCENTAGE, regardless of the actual impact on the injured workers ability to function or work in every day reality and physical injuries, or whole person impairment.It has also been said on numerous occasions they are paid an extravagant amount to make these kinds of assessments.
I am unsure what your actual injuries are but if you feel to, you might like to let others know what suffering you experience on a day to day basis... how difficult every day tasks are etc.
My GP and osteopaths opinion varies greatly but apparently the medical people that see me on a regular basis and have only my health as a concern, opinions don't count.
The question I have to ask here is... are they qualified to establish injury level? If not then why does workcover pay them to treat you for any period of time, and why are they requested to write reports, endless reports, when compared with workcover "outsourced medical professionals" are paid pittance for their time/reports in comparison?
If they cannot have medical factually based opinions?
Our readers will start to see the insanity behind the real logic here.
I have been in touch with my solicitor and have an appointment to discuss my claim but he has pretty much said that if his firm decide they do not wish to cover future costs that will be the end of my claim.
Isn't it sad that it all comes down to the cost effectiveness of a Legal Firm who are not going through their clients pain and suffering to whether an Injured Worker gets their chance in Court.
Everyone is apparently entitled to their day in court.
I would like to see this happen more often.
Despite hours of searching for information I cannot find anywhere that explains clearly what, if any, options I have a this point.
I agree its like trying to find a needle in a thousand haystacks!
This is why we all need to educate the general public into the madness we face, when we or our loved ones are injured at work. Then never give up in finding a way to put a stop to it once and for all, for the benefit of the actual injured workers.
My solicitor has been very good considering this is a no win no pay claim but once again my whole life and future is in someone Else's hands.
Yes agreed and how is that fair?
Like every other process I have been through the decision will not have anything to do with me-how much I have and will suffer but will be totally based on the monetary consideration of the person making the decision.
Yes and no doubt more and more rights will be written away in legislation's to come in the future if someone is lucky enough to get what they actually deserve in compensation.
In the true fashion of today's society I am fully disposable and recyclable. There will be many more injured workers to take my place making great incomes for medical "experts", "independent" medical panel members, insurance companies,lawyers and workers taking the same job I had with my former employers and possibly suffering the same injury.The cycle continues !!!
Unfortunately this is how it seems to be going for most. We are all human beings and every one of us counts and matters. Where are our human rights? Why is it okay to suffer and fight against a never ending battle with a total disadvantage in every way.
YES every one of them PROFIT out of our suffering! In a system "designed for the benefit of Injured Workers".
Meanwhile despite my contribution as a worker for almost 40 years has no value whatsoever and my old age will be spent in poverty,pain and fear. (Yvonne)
This is what is happening and this is WRONG! I for one thank you for your contribution and wish you all your rights including appropriate compensation for ALL suffering in your life incurred as a result of being INJURED AT WORK, and MISTREATED by this SYSTEM.
You should not be left to feel this way. You should not be at a loose end. This system is not fair.
But hold your head high knowing that you did nothing wrong. You did work... you did contribute and you do deserve so much better than this!
Another comment I would like to make. Is everyone aware that although the Bracks Government restored workers rights after the Kennett debacle, the American assessment guide used for measuring workers percentage of injury was bought back into use EXCEPT the last part of the assessment formula which relates to the workers amount of pain. Why ??? possibly because a majority of workers can't go back to work not because of the actual injury but because of the pain and drug dependence they have managing the original injury. Just my opinion possibly because of my own situation. (Yvonne)
A very valid point made here. Why??? BECAUSE THIS ISNT ABOUT THE HUMAN BEINGS ITS ABOUT CORPORATE PROFIT!
As you have noticed.... the very things that needed to be in place have been taken out of the equation... and there is no mistaking that. There is nothing good about leaving that out.
You are 100% right in how you feel in my opinion and I am sure the opinion of all the Injured Workers that are facing these very issues in their logical minds right now.
You most certainly are NOT in the minority here and the only difference between you me and the gate post is that we are speaking out. Not sitting idly by with our hands folded. Or laying down as doormats.
( Purple text are replies to Yvonne by PeopleDoMatter)
New Comment by Jo
Well done PDM you hit the nail right on the head with this post!!! (Jo)
New Comment by Yvonne
Posted by Yvonne to VWA Your loss is their GAIN COMPLAIN! at January 11, 2009 2:11 AM
Thank you so much PDM this is the first time some-one has actually listened to ME and responded to My concerns it has made me feel like I worthy of being heard.I will when I feel up to it share my story. Thank you so much. Yvonne
Dear Yvonne,
You are most welcome! Thank you for all your wonderful years of hard work and contributions to this country. Its very disheartening that for being so deserving you are treated so badly and unjustly. I am very distressed about how you have been treated and that's why I am here.
Dealing with it and actually experiencing this insanity is such an eye opening and shocking experience, it really changes your reality on top of everything else.
Why? Because greedy bureaucrats sign our rights away, then brainwash us into thinking they are really looking after us and we are the lucky country. I expect fairness and justice for all and something that really works for the injured.
As for those very Bureaucrats "looking after our interests" in such a disgraceful way.
I have to ask... why then is everyone else paid better and put above genuine people who are injured? Why is it okay to spend on surveillance, queens council including Mr Hanks, IME's, outsourced agencies who have proven to be useless, the list goes on and on.
Why do our treating doctors, therapists, osteopaths, physiotherapists, chiropractors, counsellors, psychiatrists, psychologists, get so little in comparison to the workcover based "health providers"? Even when compared to the amount they would earn in the time taken to fill in your demanding reports?
Why don't the bureaucrat's take a pay cut? Why is it okay to reduce Injured Workers entitlements and rights? Why pay so much for advertising?
For all our readers out there. I hope you care enough to offer some support to Yvonne. As you have read, she lives with pain and suffering and no one has even bothered to listen to her up until now.
Why should Yvonne have to fight for her rights and be treated this way along with everyone else, who has been injured at work?
EDUCATE yourselves on what really is going on right now for your fellow human beings.
Yvonne, don't let them win. Do not believe you are recycleable. You are worthy and you do matter.
Never give up.
PDM
It has been reported that the : "totally unbiased assessment" of the medical panel is usually unscrupulously LOW in PERCENTAGE, regardless of the actual impact on the injured workers ability to function or work in every day reality and physical injuries, or whole person impairment.It has also been said on numerous occasions they are paid an extravagant amount to make these kinds of assessments.
I am unsure what your actual injuries are but if you feel to, you might like to let others know what suffering you experience on a day to day basis... how difficult every day tasks are etc.
My GP and osteopaths opinion varies greatly but apparently the medical people that see me on a regular basis and have only my health as a concern, opinions don't count.
The question I have to ask here is... are they qualified to establish injury level? If not then why does workcover pay them to treat you for any period of time, and why are they requested to write reports, endless reports, when compared with workcover "outsourced medical professionals" are paid pittance for their time/reports in comparison?
If they cannot have medical factually based opinions?
Our readers will start to see the insanity behind the real logic here.
I have been in touch with my solicitor and have an appointment to discuss my claim but he has pretty much said that if his firm decide they do not wish to cover future costs that will be the end of my claim.
Isn't it sad that it all comes down to the cost effectiveness of a Legal Firm who are not going through their clients pain and suffering to whether an Injured Worker gets their chance in Court.
Everyone is apparently entitled to their day in court.
I would like to see this happen more often.
Despite hours of searching for information I cannot find anywhere that explains clearly what, if any, options I have a this point.
I agree its like trying to find a needle in a thousand haystacks!
This is why we all need to educate the general public into the madness we face, when we or our loved ones are injured at work. Then never give up in finding a way to put a stop to it once and for all, for the benefit of the actual injured workers.
My solicitor has been very good considering this is a no win no pay claim but once again my whole life and future is in someone Else's hands.
Yes agreed and how is that fair?
Like every other process I have been through the decision will not have anything to do with me-how much I have and will suffer but will be totally based on the monetary consideration of the person making the decision.
Yes and no doubt more and more rights will be written away in legislation's to come in the future if someone is lucky enough to get what they actually deserve in compensation.
In the true fashion of today's society I am fully disposable and recyclable. There will be many more injured workers to take my place making great incomes for medical "experts", "independent" medical panel members, insurance companies,lawyers and workers taking the same job I had with my former employers and possibly suffering the same injury.The cycle continues !!!
Unfortunately this is how it seems to be going for most. We are all human beings and every one of us counts and matters. Where are our human rights? Why is it okay to suffer and fight against a never ending battle with a total disadvantage in every way.
YES every one of them PROFIT out of our suffering! In a system "designed for the benefit of Injured Workers".
Meanwhile despite my contribution as a worker for almost 40 years has no value whatsoever and my old age will be spent in poverty,pain and fear. (Yvonne)
This is what is happening and this is WRONG! I for one thank you for your contribution and wish you all your rights including appropriate compensation for ALL suffering in your life incurred as a result of being INJURED AT WORK, and MISTREATED by this SYSTEM.
You should not be left to feel this way. You should not be at a loose end. This system is not fair.
But hold your head high knowing that you did nothing wrong. You did work... you did contribute and you do deserve so much better than this!
Another comment I would like to make. Is everyone aware that although the Bracks Government restored workers rights after the Kennett debacle, the American assessment guide used for measuring workers percentage of injury was bought back into use EXCEPT the last part of the assessment formula which relates to the workers amount of pain. Why ??? possibly because a majority of workers can't go back to work not because of the actual injury but because of the pain and drug dependence they have managing the original injury. Just my opinion possibly because of my own situation. (Yvonne)
A very valid point made here. Why??? BECAUSE THIS ISNT ABOUT THE HUMAN BEINGS ITS ABOUT CORPORATE PROFIT!
As you have noticed.... the very things that needed to be in place have been taken out of the equation... and there is no mistaking that. There is nothing good about leaving that out.
You are 100% right in how you feel in my opinion and I am sure the opinion of all the Injured Workers that are facing these very issues in their logical minds right now.
You most certainly are NOT in the minority here and the only difference between you me and the gate post is that we are speaking out. Not sitting idly by with our hands folded. Or laying down as doormats.
( Purple text are replies to Yvonne by PeopleDoMatter)
New Comment by Jo
Well done PDM you hit the nail right on the head with this post!!! (Jo)
New Comment by Yvonne
Posted by Yvonne to VWA Your loss is their GAIN COMPLAIN! at January 11, 2009 2:11 AM
Thank you so much PDM this is the first time some-one has actually listened to ME and responded to My concerns it has made me feel like I worthy of being heard.I will when I feel up to it share my story. Thank you so much. Yvonne
Dear Yvonne,
You are most welcome! Thank you for all your wonderful years of hard work and contributions to this country. Its very disheartening that for being so deserving you are treated so badly and unjustly. I am very distressed about how you have been treated and that's why I am here.
Dealing with it and actually experiencing this insanity is such an eye opening and shocking experience, it really changes your reality on top of everything else.
Why? Because greedy bureaucrats sign our rights away, then brainwash us into thinking they are really looking after us and we are the lucky country. I expect fairness and justice for all and something that really works for the injured.
As for those very Bureaucrats "looking after our interests" in such a disgraceful way.
I have to ask... why then is everyone else paid better and put above genuine people who are injured? Why is it okay to spend on surveillance, queens council including Mr Hanks, IME's, outsourced agencies who have proven to be useless, the list goes on and on.
Why do our treating doctors, therapists, osteopaths, physiotherapists, chiropractors, counsellors, psychiatrists, psychologists, get so little in comparison to the workcover based "health providers"? Even when compared to the amount they would earn in the time taken to fill in your demanding reports?
Why don't the bureaucrat's take a pay cut? Why is it okay to reduce Injured Workers entitlements and rights? Why pay so much for advertising?
For all our readers out there. I hope you care enough to offer some support to Yvonne. As you have read, she lives with pain and suffering and no one has even bothered to listen to her up until now.
Why should Yvonne have to fight for her rights and be treated this way along with everyone else, who has been injured at work?
EDUCATE yourselves on what really is going on right now for your fellow human beings.
Yvonne, don't let them win. Do not believe you are recycleable. You are worthy and you do matter.
Never give up.
PDM
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Yvonne comment
Hi I'm new to this site and have been scr*** by workcover too, could you explain what class action you are referring to?
(Yvonne) 1.14am
Hi Yvonne,
We are looking for interest from other injured workers in a class action lawsuit.
People that are definately interested without backing out at the last minute.
Feel free to share your issues with us on this site.
Have a great night.
Cheers
(Yvonne) 1.14am
Hi Yvonne,
We are looking for interest from other injured workers in a class action lawsuit.
People that are definately interested without backing out at the last minute.
Feel free to share your issues with us on this site.
Have a great night.
Cheers
Monday, January 5, 2009
What have you got to lose by speaking out?Standing up?
Hi,
What is everyone so scared of?
It has come to my attention that very few of you are willing to speak out about issues you are being bombarded with every day at the hands of the worksafe workcover system.
What have you got to lose?
Unfortunately there are a lot of unscrupulous types out there willing to make a quick buck out of other peoples suffering.
Even willing to steal ideas and others hard work and try to create things that do not belong to them.
This is NOT the place for anyone who is interested in that.
Why no interest in a class action?
Why no interest in helping others who are suffering on a daily basis and financially ruined due to their injuries?
Why are there so many people viewing the information contained in this blog but are too scared to type their stories up and post them?
Why does it seem like only very few people are even willing to stand up and say this situation is wrong?
No wonder this keeps happening... are we really all too scared to stand up together?
To make a change for the better? To help each other?
What is wrong?
Why are we so scared to speak the truth?
Somebody out there please enlighten me, or at least send me your stories and prove that you are not too scared to stand up have your say and attempt to make a difference.
Cheers,
StandUp
What is everyone so scared of?
It has come to my attention that very few of you are willing to speak out about issues you are being bombarded with every day at the hands of the worksafe workcover system.
What have you got to lose?
Unfortunately there are a lot of unscrupulous types out there willing to make a quick buck out of other peoples suffering.
Even willing to steal ideas and others hard work and try to create things that do not belong to them.
This is NOT the place for anyone who is interested in that.
Why no interest in a class action?
Why no interest in helping others who are suffering on a daily basis and financially ruined due to their injuries?
Why are there so many people viewing the information contained in this blog but are too scared to type their stories up and post them?
Why does it seem like only very few people are even willing to stand up and say this situation is wrong?
No wonder this keeps happening... are we really all too scared to stand up together?
To make a change for the better? To help each other?
What is wrong?
Why are we so scared to speak the truth?
Somebody out there please enlighten me, or at least send me your stories and prove that you are not too scared to stand up have your say and attempt to make a difference.
Cheers,
StandUp
This Site is Produced for Injured workers and Effected Parties Personal Use only and NO Businesses are Permitted to use information on this site
No Business may use my research or information contained in my site for their own profit or gain whatsoever.
This site is NOT intended for profit of another agency, firm, corportation association, government body or any other form of business venture.
This includes any Legal Firm or Non Profit Business Associations, and all who would like to profit off another persons hard work for their business profit or pretence of education etc.
This site is ONLY permitted for use of individual people who are Injured in either traffic accidents or Workplace Injuries or their effected families friends and loved ones.Or for Individual People who know something is wrong and wish to educate themselves.
Any use of materials contained in this site is strictly for personal use only!
I do this work in the best interests of these individuals and NOT for any other purpose.
Without express written permission from me, no business has the right to steal information and my hard earned hours of work and research and anything else contained in this site whatsoever and if found to have done so will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I suggest if you are a business you do your own work and research away from this site. If unsure about the intention of this site or unclear about the above message. Feel free to contact me. Do NOT use this site if you are a business. Strictly Private Individual use only. ESPECIALLY LEGAL FIRMS YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!
This site is NOT intended for profit of another agency, firm, corportation association, government body or any other form of business venture.
This includes any Legal Firm or Non Profit Business Associations, and all who would like to profit off another persons hard work for their business profit or pretence of education etc.
This site is ONLY permitted for use of individual people who are Injured in either traffic accidents or Workplace Injuries or their effected families friends and loved ones.Or for Individual People who know something is wrong and wish to educate themselves.
Any use of materials contained in this site is strictly for personal use only!
I do this work in the best interests of these individuals and NOT for any other purpose.
Without express written permission from me, no business has the right to steal information and my hard earned hours of work and research and anything else contained in this site whatsoever and if found to have done so will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I suggest if you are a business you do your own work and research away from this site. If unsure about the intention of this site or unclear about the above message. Feel free to contact me. Do NOT use this site if you are a business. Strictly Private Individual use only. ESPECIALLY LEGAL FIRMS YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Word meaning of Sovereignty From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty
"Sovereign" redirects here. For other uses, see Sovereign (disambiguation).
Sovereignty is the exclusive right to control a government, a country, a people, or oneself. A sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority.
An important concept in sovereignty is its absoluteness. A sovereign power (whether an individual or an assembly such as a parliament) has absolute sovereignty if it has the unlimited right to control everything and every kind of activity in its territory. This means that it is not restricted by a constitution, by the laws of its predecessors, or by custom, and no areas of law or behaviour are reserved as being outside its control; eg. parents are not guaranteed the right to decide some matters in the upbringing of their children independently of the sovereign power, municipalities are not guaranteed freedom from its interference in some local matters, etc. Theorists have diverged over the necessity or desirability of absoluteness. Historically, it is doubtful whether a sovereign power has ever claimed complete absoluteness, let alone had the power to actually enforce it. This last point raises, in passing, the important distinction between de jure and de facto sovereignty. De jure, or legal, sovereignty is the theoretical right to exercise exclusive control over one's subjects. De facto, or actual, sovereignty is concerned with whether control in fact exists. It can be approached in two ways:
1) Does the governing power have sufficient strength (police or whatever) to compel its subjects to obey it? (If so, a type of de facto sovereignty called coercive sovereignty exists.)
2) Are the subjects of the governing power in the habit of obeying it?
Another distinction is between external and internal sovereignty. External sovereignty concerns the relationship between a sovereign power and political bodies outside itself, such as other nation states. The central question is, under what conditions do nation states recognise a political entity as having sovereignty over some territory? The following criteria, used by Britain in regarding other powers, are typical:
"Sovereignty." A government which exercises de facto administrative control over a country and is not subordinate to any other government in that country is a foreign sovereign state. (The Arantzazu Mendi, [1939] A.C. 256)
– Strouds Judicial Dictionary
External sovereignty is connected with questions of international law, such as: when, if ever, is intervention by one country onto another's territory permissible?
Internal sovereignty is the relationship between a sovereign power and its own subjects. A central concern is legitimacy: by what right does a political body (or individual) exercise authority over its subjects? Possible answers are, by divine right, by natural right, or — the consentual or contractarian hypothesis — that each of its subjects has actually or tacitly transferred to it that right.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Different Views
3 Territorial sovereignty
4 Sovereignty in international law
5 Sovereignty and United States federalism
6 Miscellaneous
7 Sovereign as a title
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
[edit] History
Ideas about sovereignty have changed over time. The Roman jurist Ulpian observed that:
The imperium of the people is transferred to the Emperor,
The Emperor is not bound by the law,
The Emperor's word is law.
Ulpian was expressing — although he did not use the term — the idea that the Emperor exercised a rather absolute form of sovereignty. Ulpian's statements were known in medieval Europe but sovereignty was not an important concept in medieval times. Medieval monarchs were not sovereign, at least not strongly so, because they were constrained by, and shared power with, their feudal aristocracy. Furthermore, both were strongly constrained by custom.
Sovereignty reemerged a concept in the late 1500s, a time when civil wars had created a craving for stronger central authority, when monarchs had begun to gather power into their own hands at the expense of the nobility, and the modern nation state was emerging. Jean Bodin, partly in reaction to the chaos of the French wars of religion; and Thomas Hobbes, partly in reaction to the English Civil War, both presented theories of sovereignty calling for strong central authority in the form of absolute monarchy. In his 1576 treatise Six livres de la république ("Six Books of the Republic") Bodin argued that it is inherent in the nature of the state that sovereignty must be:
a) Perpetual, not temporarily delegated as to a strong leader in an emergency or to a state employee such as a magistrate.
b) Absolute. On this point he said that the sovereign must not be hedged in with obligations and conditions, must be able to legislate without his (or its) subjects' consent, must not be bound by the laws of his predecessors, and could not, because it is illogical, be bound by his own laws.
Bodin rejected the notion of transferrenc of sovereignty from people to sovereign ; natural law and divine law confer upon the sovereign the right to rule. And the sovereign is not above divine law or natural law. He is above (ie. not bound by) only positive law, that is, laws made by humans. The fact that the sovereign must obey divine and natural law imposes ethical constraints on him. Bodin also held that the lois royales, the fundamental laws of the French monarchy which regulated matters such as succession, are natural laws and are binding on the French sovereign. Bodin described the sovereign as a ruler above human law and subject only to the divine or natural law. He thus predefined the scope of the divine right of kings, stating "Sovereignty is a Republic's absolute and perpetual power "[citation needed].
Hobbes, in Leviathan (1651) introduced an early version of the social contract (or contractarian) theory, arguing that to overcome the "nasty, brutish and short" quality of life without the cooperation of other human beings, people must join in a "commonwealth" and submit to a "Soveraigne Power" that is able to compel them to act in the common good. This expediency argument attracted many of the early proponents of sovereignty. Hobbes deduced from the definition of sovereignty that it must be:
a) Absolute, because conditions could only be imposed on a sovereign if there were some outside arbitrator to determine when he had violated them, in which case the sovereign would not be the final authority.
b) Indivisible: that is, the sovereign is the only final authority in his territory; he does not share final authority with any other entity. Hobbes held this to be true because otherwise there would be no way of resolving a disagreement between the multiple authorities.
These characteristics would decisively shape the concept of sovereignty, which we can find again in the social contract theories, for example, in Rousseau's (1712-1778) definition of popular sovereignty (with early antecedents in Francisco Suárez's theory of the origin of power), which only differs in that he considers the people to be the legitimate sovereign. Likewise, it is inalienable – Rousseau condemned the distinction between the origin and the exercise of sovereignty, a distinction upon which constitutional monarchy or representative democracy are founded. Machiavelli, Hobbes, John Locke and Montesquieu are also key figures in the unfolding of the concept of sovereignty.
Enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, in his 1763 treatise Of the Social Contract[1] argued, "the growth of the State giving the trustees of public authority more and means to abuse their power, the more the Government has to have force to contain the people, the more force the Sovereign should have in turn in order to contain the Government," with the understanding that the Sovereign is "a collective being of wonder" (Book II, Chapter I) resulting from "the general will" of the people, and that "what any man, whoever he may be, orders on his own, is not a law" (Book II, Chapter VI) – and furthermore predicated on the assumption that the people have an unbiased means by which to ascertain the general will. Thus the legal maxim, "there is no law without a sovereign."
Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) defined sovereignty as "the power to decide the state of exception", in an attempt, argues Giorgio Agamben, to counter Walter Benjamin's theory of violence as radically disjoint from law. Georges Bataille's heterodox conception of sovereignty, which may be said to be an "anti-sovereignty", also inspired many thinkers, such as Jacques Derrida, Agamben or Jean-Luc Nancy.
[edit] Different Views
There exist vastly differing views on the moral bases of sovereignty. These views translate into various bases for legal systems:
Partisans of the divine right of kings argue that the monarch is sovereign by divine right, and not by the agreement of the people. Taken to its conclusion, this may translate into a system of absolute monarchy.
The second book of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Du Contrat Social, ou Principes du droit politique (1762) deals with sovereignty and its rights. Sovereignty, or the general will, is inalienable, for the will cannot be transmitted; it is indivisible, since it is essentially general; it is infallible and always right, determined and limited in its power by the common interest; it acts through laws. Law is the decision of the general will in regard to some object of common interest, but though the general will is always right and desires only good, its judgment is not always enlightened, and consequently does not always see wherein the common good lies; hence the necessity of the legislator. But the legislator has, of himself, no authority; he is only a guide who drafts and proposes laws, but the people alone (that is, the sovereign or general will) has authority to make and impose them.
Democracy is based on the concept of popular sovereignty. Representative democracies permit (against Rousseau's thought) a transfer of the exercise of sovereignty from the people to the parliament or the government. Parliamentary sovereignty refers to a representative democracy where the Parliament is, ultimately, the source of sovereignty, and not the executive power.
Anarchists and some libertarians deny the sovereignty of states and governments. Anarchists often argue for a specific individual kind of sovereignty, such as the Anarch as a sovereign individual. Salvador Dalí, for instance, talked of "anarcho-monarchist" (as usual, tongue in cheek); Antonin Artaud of Heliogabalus: Or, The Crowned Anarchist; Max Stirner of The Ego and Its Own; Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida of a kind of "antisovereignty". Therefore, anarchists join a classical conception of the individual as sovereign of himself, which forms the basis of political consciousness. The unified consciousness is sovereignty over one's own body, as Nietzsche demonstrated (see also Pierre Klossowski's book on Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle). See also self-ownership and Sovereignty of the individual.
Republican form of government acknowledges that the sovereign power is founded in the people, individually, not in the collective or whole body of free citizens, as in a democratic form. Thus no majority can deprive a minority of their sovereign rights and powers.
Imperialists hold a view of sovereignty where power rightfully exists with those states that hold the greatest ability to impose the will of said state, by force or threat of force, over the populace or other states with weaker military or political will. They effectively deny the sovereignty of the individual in deference to either the 'good' of the whole, or to divine right.
The key element of sovereignty in the legalistic sense is that of exclusivity of jurisdiction.
Specifically, when a decision is made by a sovereign entity, it cannot generally be overruled by a higher authority. Further, it is generally held that another legal element of sovereignty requires not only the legal right to exercise power, but the actual exercise of such power. ("No de jure sovereignty without de facto sovereignty.") In other words, neither claiming/being proclaimed Sovereign, nor merely exercising the power of a Sovereign is sufficient; sovereignty requires both elements.
A more formal distinction is whether the law is held to be sovereign, that is, whether it is above political or other interference. Sovereign law constitutes a true state of law, meaning the letter of the law (if constitutionally correct) is applicable and enforceable, even when against the political will of the nation, as long as not formally changed following the constitutional procedure. Strictly speaking, any deviation from this principle constitutes a revolution or a coup d'état, regardless of the intentions.
[edit] Territorial sovereignty
Following the Thirty Years' War, a European religious conflict that embroiled much of the continent, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 established the notion of territorial sovereignty as a doctrine of noninterference in the affairs of other nations. The 1789 French Revolution shifted the possession of sovereignty from the sovereign ruler to the nation and its people.
[edit] Sovereignty in international law
In constitutional and international law, the concept of sovereignty pertains to a government possessing full control over its own affairs within a territorial or geographical area or limit, and in some contexts to various organs possessing legal jurisdiction in their own chief, rather than by mandate or under supervision. Determining whether a specific entity is sovereign is not an exact science, but often a matter of diplomatic dispute.
While many purists regard the individual or an individual nation state as the sole seat of sovereignty, in international law, sovereignty is defined as the legitimate exercise of power and the interpretation of international law by a state. De jure sovereignty is the legal right to do so; de facto sovereignty is the ability in fact to do so (which becomes of special concern upon the failure of the usual expectation that de jure and de facto sovereignty exist at the place and time of concern, and rest in the same organization). Foreign governments recognize the sovereignty of a state over a territory, or refuse to do so.
For instance, in theory, both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China considered themselves sovereign governments over the whole territory of mainland China and Taiwan. Though some foreign governments recognize the Republic of China as the valid state, most now recognize the People's Republic of China. However, de facto, the People's Republic of China has jurisdiction only over mainland China but not Taiwan, while the Republic of China has jurisdiction only over Taiwan and some outlying islands but not mainland China. Since ambassadors are only exchanged between sovereign high parties, the countries recognizing the People's Republic often entertain de facto but not de jure diplomatic relationships with the Republic by maintaining 'offices of representation', such as the American Institute in Taiwan, rather than embassies there.
Sovereignty may be recognized even when the sovereign body possesses no territory or its territory is under partial or total occupation by another power. The Holy See was in this position between the annexation in 1870 of the Papal States by Italy and the signing of the Lateran Treaties in 1929, when it was recognised as sovereign by many (mostly Roman Catholic) states despite possessing no territory – a situation resolved when the Lateran Treaties granted the Holy See sovereignty over the Vatican City. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is likewise a non-territorial body that claims to be a sovereign entity, though it is not universally recognized as such.
Similarly, the governments-in-exile of many European states (for instance, Norway, Netherlands or Czechoslovakia) during the Second World War were regarded as sovereign despite their territories being under foreign occupation; their governance resumed as soon as the occupation had ended. The government of Kuwait was in a similar situation vis-à-vis the Iraqi occupation of its country during 1990-1991.
[edit] Sovereignty and United States federalism
The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page.
The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page. (January 2008)
Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.
This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes.
Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (January 2008)
In federal systems of government, such as that of the United States, sovereignty also refers to powers which a state government possesses independently of the federal government; this is called "clipped sovereignty."
The question whether the individual states, particularly the Confederate States of America, remained sovereign became a matter of debate in the U.S., especially in its first century of existence:
According to the theory of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John C. Calhoun, the states had entered into an agreement from which they might withdraw if other parties broke the terms of agreement, and they remained sovereign. These individuals contributed to the theoretical basis for acts of secession, as occurred just before the American Civil War. However, they propounded this as part of a general theory of "nullification," in which a state had the right to refuse to accept any Federal law that it found to be unconstitutional, regardless of judicial review.
Likewise, according to the theory put forth by James Madison in the Federalist Papers "each State, in ratifying the Constitution, was to be considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution [was to be] a federal, and not a national constitution." In the end, Madison likewise compromised with the Anti-federalists to modify the Constitution to protect state sovereignty: At the 1787 constitutional convention a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it saying, "A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."Rives, William (1866). History of the Life and Times of James Madison 2. Retrieved on April 2008.
In his Report on the Virginia Resolutions, James Madison wrote that "The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal, above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently, that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.” Madison even made a dire prediction of what would happen if this was denied, stating that “If the deliberate exercise of dangerous powers, palpably withheld by the Constitution, could not justify the parties to it in interposing even so far as to arrest the progress of the evil, and thereby to preserve the Constitution itself, as well as to provide for the safety of the parties to it, there would be an end to all relief from usurped power, and a direct subversion of the rights specified or recognized under all the state constitutions, as well as a plain denial of the fundamental principle on which our independence itself was declared."
During the first half-century after the Constitution was ratified, the right of secession was asserted on several occasions, and various states considered secession (including, for example, the Hartford Convention after the War of 1812) in response, not a single state objected on the grounds that such was unlawful. It was not until later, c. 1830, that Andrew Jackson, Joseph Story, Daniel Webster and others began to publish the theory that secession was illegal, and that the United States was a supremely sovereign nation over the various member-states. These writers inspired Lincoln's later declaration that "no state may lawfully get out of the Union by its own mere motion", based on the premise that "the Union is older than the Constitution or the even states," in effect an assertion that the 1781 confederation had consolidated the states into a single nation.
Opponents of Lincoln's claim argue that the states, in forming the union of the Constitution, each seceded from the prior Confederated union of 1781, thereafter nine of them joined in Constitutional union on June 21, 1788 – when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution, thereby establishing it among those nine states as per Article VII; meanwhile other states refused to ratify until various conditions were met – including the addition of the Bill of Rights, ultimately ratifying by 1790. Therefore, their argument proceeds, both unions continued to exist in perpetuity between 1788 and 1790 (whereupon the final state of Rhode Island likewise joined the Constitutional union, thus ending the original confederated union. For this reason, the United States could not have been a single sovereign nation at any time prior to the Constitution, if ever.
[edit] Miscellaneous
Tribal sovereignty refers to the right of tribes or of federally recognized Native American nations to exercise limited jurisdiction within and sometimes beyond reservation boundaries.
In some regions of the world, such as Quebec and Indian Kashmir, the word "sovereignty" has become the preferred synonym for national independence (referring in this case to "national sovereignty" or the right of national self-determination, as explicited by example in U.S. President Wilson's Fourteen Points - 1918). Compare the Māori term rangatiratanga, and the concept of self-determination.
The Holy See is recognized as sovereign subject under international law (separate entity in international law vis-à-vis Vatican City, which has a very small amount of territory enclaved in the Italian capital Rome).
A case sui generis, though often contested, is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the third sovereign mini-state based in an enclave in the Italian capital (since in 1869 the Palazzo di Malta and the Villa Malta receive extraterritorial rights, in this way becoming the only "sovereign" territorial possessions of the modern Order), which is the last existing heir to one of several once militarily significant, crusader states of sovereign military orders; in 1607 its Grand masters were also made by the Holy Roman Emperor Reichsfürst ('prince of the Holy Roman Empire', granting a seat in the Reichstag or Imperial Diet, at the time the closest permanent equivalent to a UN-type general assembly; confirmed 1620), the sovereign rights never deposed, only the territories lost; several modern states still maintain full diplomatic relations (100) with the order (now de facto 'the most prestigious service club'), and the UN awarded it observer status.
Just like the office of Head of state (whether sovereignty is vested in it or not) can be vested jointly in several persons within a state, the sovereign jurisdiction over a single political territory can be shared jointly by two or more consenting powers, notably in the forms of a condominium or of (as still in Andorra) a co-principality
Thomas Hobbes wrote that Sovereignty was the very soul of the Leviathan.
Christianity and more specifically the systematic theology of Calvinism asserts that God is sovereign in all things, including salvation.
An underdeveloped aspect of sovereignty is individual sovereignty meaning the ability of individuals to have effective control over their everyday lives. Individuals have no genuine sovereignty unless they have secure income sufficient to satisfy basic need and rare is the politics or economics, such as binary economics, which consciously upholds individual sovereignty by guaranteeing that income.
[edit] Sovereign as a title
In some cases, the title sovereign is not just a generic term, but an actual (part of the) formal style of a Head of state.
Thus from 22 June 1934, to 29 May 1953, (the title "Emperor of India" was dropped as of 15 August 1947, by retroactive proclamation dated 22 June 1948), the King of South Africa was styled in the Dominion of South Africa: "By the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India and Sovereign in and over the Union of South Africa." Upon the accession of Elizabeth II to the Throne of South Africa in 1952, the title was changed to Queen of South Africa and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, parallel to the style used in almost all the other Commonwealth Realms. The pope holds ex officio the title "Sovereign of the Vatican City State" in respect to Vatican City.
The adjective form can also be used in a Monarch's full style, as in pre-imperial Russia, 16 January 1547 – 22 November 1721: Bozhiyeyu Milostiyu Velikiy/Velikaya Gosudar'/Gosudarynya Tsar'/Tsaritsa i Velikiy/Velikaya Knyaz'/Knyaginya N.N. vseya Rossiy Samodyerzhets "By the Grace of God Great Sovereign Tsar/Tsarina and Grand Prince/Princess, N.N., of All Russia, Autocrat"
[edit] See also
Seigniorage, the sovereign power to issue money
Basileus
Rousseau's classic theory of popular sovereignty
Carl Schmitt's theory of sovereignty as the power to decide the instauration of the state of exception (according to Giorgio Agamben, a response to Walter Benjamin's theorization of a "pure violence" unrelated with law)
Choice can it be
Colonization
Constitutive theory of statehood
Declarative theory of statehood
Dictatorship
Divine right of kings (Bodin, Hobbes, etc.)
Leadership
Montevideo Convention
Neo-medievalism
Non-intervention
Pareto
Parliamentary sovereignty
Popular sovereignty
Plenary authority
Self-determination
Self-ownership
Social contract theories (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau)
State
Sovereigntist
Suzerainty
Westphalian sovereignty
[edit] References
^ Of the Social Contract, Book II, Chapter III.
This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
The Changing Character of Sovereignty in International Law and International Relations by Winston P. Nagan and Craig Hammer of the Levine College of Law, University of Florida
Etymology OnLine
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
The Extinction of Nation-States
Protection of national sovereign rights under international law
WorldStatesmen
Catalan bid for 'sovereignty', BBC NEWS
The Jacobs Elements of Sovereignty
[1] George W. Bush: "Tribal sovereignty means that; it's sovereign. I mean you're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities." Washington, D.C., August 2004
[edit] External links
Philosophy portal
A Brief Primer on International Law
Official United Nations website
Official UN website on International Law
Official website of the International Court of Justice
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty"
Categories: Constitutional state types | Emergency laws | Heads of state | International law | International relations | Monarchy | Political philosophy | Philosophy of law
Hidden categories: Cleanup from October 2007 | All pages needing cleanup | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since November 2007 | Articles with limited geographic scope | NPOV disputes from January 2008 | All NPOV disputes | Articles with unsourced statements since January 2008
Comment by PDM:
It has recently been brought to my attention that the media has been maligning the word Sovereign and associating it with a CULT!
Above is one description of the word Sovereign, educate yourselves and do your own searches into the true meaning of the word. ( I am advised that Blacks Law Dictionary is a must have to educate yourself in the true meaning of the hidden language of the law.)
Just because a small number of people are finding out the truth and facts and their real rights does not make them a CULT. It just makes them EDUCATED.
Do yourselves a favour and look beyond the media,make your own enquiries, and do not let the buck stop with our Government bodies. If you have suffered as a result of Government you will understand a lot more than if you haven't.
The truth is out there.... don't let anyone brainwash you! We deserve better dont you think?
Warm Regards,
PeopleDoMatter
"Sovereign" redirects here. For other uses, see Sovereign (disambiguation).
Sovereignty is the exclusive right to control a government, a country, a people, or oneself. A sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority.
An important concept in sovereignty is its absoluteness. A sovereign power (whether an individual or an assembly such as a parliament) has absolute sovereignty if it has the unlimited right to control everything and every kind of activity in its territory. This means that it is not restricted by a constitution, by the laws of its predecessors, or by custom, and no areas of law or behaviour are reserved as being outside its control; eg. parents are not guaranteed the right to decide some matters in the upbringing of their children independently of the sovereign power, municipalities are not guaranteed freedom from its interference in some local matters, etc. Theorists have diverged over the necessity or desirability of absoluteness. Historically, it is doubtful whether a sovereign power has ever claimed complete absoluteness, let alone had the power to actually enforce it. This last point raises, in passing, the important distinction between de jure and de facto sovereignty. De jure, or legal, sovereignty is the theoretical right to exercise exclusive control over one's subjects. De facto, or actual, sovereignty is concerned with whether control in fact exists. It can be approached in two ways:
1) Does the governing power have sufficient strength (police or whatever) to compel its subjects to obey it? (If so, a type of de facto sovereignty called coercive sovereignty exists.)
2) Are the subjects of the governing power in the habit of obeying it?
Another distinction is between external and internal sovereignty. External sovereignty concerns the relationship between a sovereign power and political bodies outside itself, such as other nation states. The central question is, under what conditions do nation states recognise a political entity as having sovereignty over some territory? The following criteria, used by Britain in regarding other powers, are typical:
"Sovereignty." A government which exercises de facto administrative control over a country and is not subordinate to any other government in that country is a foreign sovereign state. (The Arantzazu Mendi, [1939] A.C. 256)
– Strouds Judicial Dictionary
External sovereignty is connected with questions of international law, such as: when, if ever, is intervention by one country onto another's territory permissible?
Internal sovereignty is the relationship between a sovereign power and its own subjects. A central concern is legitimacy: by what right does a political body (or individual) exercise authority over its subjects? Possible answers are, by divine right, by natural right, or — the consentual or contractarian hypothesis — that each of its subjects has actually or tacitly transferred to it that right.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Different Views
3 Territorial sovereignty
4 Sovereignty in international law
5 Sovereignty and United States federalism
6 Miscellaneous
7 Sovereign as a title
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
[edit] History
Ideas about sovereignty have changed over time. The Roman jurist Ulpian observed that:
The imperium of the people is transferred to the Emperor,
The Emperor is not bound by the law,
The Emperor's word is law.
Ulpian was expressing — although he did not use the term — the idea that the Emperor exercised a rather absolute form of sovereignty. Ulpian's statements were known in medieval Europe but sovereignty was not an important concept in medieval times. Medieval monarchs were not sovereign, at least not strongly so, because they were constrained by, and shared power with, their feudal aristocracy. Furthermore, both were strongly constrained by custom.
Sovereignty reemerged a concept in the late 1500s, a time when civil wars had created a craving for stronger central authority, when monarchs had begun to gather power into their own hands at the expense of the nobility, and the modern nation state was emerging. Jean Bodin, partly in reaction to the chaos of the French wars of religion; and Thomas Hobbes, partly in reaction to the English Civil War, both presented theories of sovereignty calling for strong central authority in the form of absolute monarchy. In his 1576 treatise Six livres de la république ("Six Books of the Republic") Bodin argued that it is inherent in the nature of the state that sovereignty must be:
a) Perpetual, not temporarily delegated as to a strong leader in an emergency or to a state employee such as a magistrate.
b) Absolute. On this point he said that the sovereign must not be hedged in with obligations and conditions, must be able to legislate without his (or its) subjects' consent, must not be bound by the laws of his predecessors, and could not, because it is illogical, be bound by his own laws.
Bodin rejected the notion of transferrenc of sovereignty from people to sovereign ; natural law and divine law confer upon the sovereign the right to rule. And the sovereign is not above divine law or natural law. He is above (ie. not bound by) only positive law, that is, laws made by humans. The fact that the sovereign must obey divine and natural law imposes ethical constraints on him. Bodin also held that the lois royales, the fundamental laws of the French monarchy which regulated matters such as succession, are natural laws and are binding on the French sovereign. Bodin described the sovereign as a ruler above human law and subject only to the divine or natural law. He thus predefined the scope of the divine right of kings, stating "Sovereignty is a Republic's absolute and perpetual power "[citation needed].
Hobbes, in Leviathan (1651) introduced an early version of the social contract (or contractarian) theory, arguing that to overcome the "nasty, brutish and short" quality of life without the cooperation of other human beings, people must join in a "commonwealth" and submit to a "Soveraigne Power" that is able to compel them to act in the common good. This expediency argument attracted many of the early proponents of sovereignty. Hobbes deduced from the definition of sovereignty that it must be:
a) Absolute, because conditions could only be imposed on a sovereign if there were some outside arbitrator to determine when he had violated them, in which case the sovereign would not be the final authority.
b) Indivisible: that is, the sovereign is the only final authority in his territory; he does not share final authority with any other entity. Hobbes held this to be true because otherwise there would be no way of resolving a disagreement between the multiple authorities.
These characteristics would decisively shape the concept of sovereignty, which we can find again in the social contract theories, for example, in Rousseau's (1712-1778) definition of popular sovereignty (with early antecedents in Francisco Suárez's theory of the origin of power), which only differs in that he considers the people to be the legitimate sovereign. Likewise, it is inalienable – Rousseau condemned the distinction between the origin and the exercise of sovereignty, a distinction upon which constitutional monarchy or representative democracy are founded. Machiavelli, Hobbes, John Locke and Montesquieu are also key figures in the unfolding of the concept of sovereignty.
Enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, in his 1763 treatise Of the Social Contract[1] argued, "the growth of the State giving the trustees of public authority more and means to abuse their power, the more the Government has to have force to contain the people, the more force the Sovereign should have in turn in order to contain the Government," with the understanding that the Sovereign is "a collective being of wonder" (Book II, Chapter I) resulting from "the general will" of the people, and that "what any man, whoever he may be, orders on his own, is not a law" (Book II, Chapter VI) – and furthermore predicated on the assumption that the people have an unbiased means by which to ascertain the general will. Thus the legal maxim, "there is no law without a sovereign."
Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) defined sovereignty as "the power to decide the state of exception", in an attempt, argues Giorgio Agamben, to counter Walter Benjamin's theory of violence as radically disjoint from law. Georges Bataille's heterodox conception of sovereignty, which may be said to be an "anti-sovereignty", also inspired many thinkers, such as Jacques Derrida, Agamben or Jean-Luc Nancy.
[edit] Different Views
There exist vastly differing views on the moral bases of sovereignty. These views translate into various bases for legal systems:
Partisans of the divine right of kings argue that the monarch is sovereign by divine right, and not by the agreement of the people. Taken to its conclusion, this may translate into a system of absolute monarchy.
The second book of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Du Contrat Social, ou Principes du droit politique (1762) deals with sovereignty and its rights. Sovereignty, or the general will, is inalienable, for the will cannot be transmitted; it is indivisible, since it is essentially general; it is infallible and always right, determined and limited in its power by the common interest; it acts through laws. Law is the decision of the general will in regard to some object of common interest, but though the general will is always right and desires only good, its judgment is not always enlightened, and consequently does not always see wherein the common good lies; hence the necessity of the legislator. But the legislator has, of himself, no authority; he is only a guide who drafts and proposes laws, but the people alone (that is, the sovereign or general will) has authority to make and impose them.
Democracy is based on the concept of popular sovereignty. Representative democracies permit (against Rousseau's thought) a transfer of the exercise of sovereignty from the people to the parliament or the government. Parliamentary sovereignty refers to a representative democracy where the Parliament is, ultimately, the source of sovereignty, and not the executive power.
Anarchists and some libertarians deny the sovereignty of states and governments. Anarchists often argue for a specific individual kind of sovereignty, such as the Anarch as a sovereign individual. Salvador Dalí, for instance, talked of "anarcho-monarchist" (as usual, tongue in cheek); Antonin Artaud of Heliogabalus: Or, The Crowned Anarchist; Max Stirner of The Ego and Its Own; Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida of a kind of "antisovereignty". Therefore, anarchists join a classical conception of the individual as sovereign of himself, which forms the basis of political consciousness. The unified consciousness is sovereignty over one's own body, as Nietzsche demonstrated (see also Pierre Klossowski's book on Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle). See also self-ownership and Sovereignty of the individual.
Republican form of government acknowledges that the sovereign power is founded in the people, individually, not in the collective or whole body of free citizens, as in a democratic form. Thus no majority can deprive a minority of their sovereign rights and powers.
Imperialists hold a view of sovereignty where power rightfully exists with those states that hold the greatest ability to impose the will of said state, by force or threat of force, over the populace or other states with weaker military or political will. They effectively deny the sovereignty of the individual in deference to either the 'good' of the whole, or to divine right.
The key element of sovereignty in the legalistic sense is that of exclusivity of jurisdiction.
Specifically, when a decision is made by a sovereign entity, it cannot generally be overruled by a higher authority. Further, it is generally held that another legal element of sovereignty requires not only the legal right to exercise power, but the actual exercise of such power. ("No de jure sovereignty without de facto sovereignty.") In other words, neither claiming/being proclaimed Sovereign, nor merely exercising the power of a Sovereign is sufficient; sovereignty requires both elements.
A more formal distinction is whether the law is held to be sovereign, that is, whether it is above political or other interference. Sovereign law constitutes a true state of law, meaning the letter of the law (if constitutionally correct) is applicable and enforceable, even when against the political will of the nation, as long as not formally changed following the constitutional procedure. Strictly speaking, any deviation from this principle constitutes a revolution or a coup d'état, regardless of the intentions.
[edit] Territorial sovereignty
Following the Thirty Years' War, a European religious conflict that embroiled much of the continent, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 established the notion of territorial sovereignty as a doctrine of noninterference in the affairs of other nations. The 1789 French Revolution shifted the possession of sovereignty from the sovereign ruler to the nation and its people.
[edit] Sovereignty in international law
In constitutional and international law, the concept of sovereignty pertains to a government possessing full control over its own affairs within a territorial or geographical area or limit, and in some contexts to various organs possessing legal jurisdiction in their own chief, rather than by mandate or under supervision. Determining whether a specific entity is sovereign is not an exact science, but often a matter of diplomatic dispute.
While many purists regard the individual or an individual nation state as the sole seat of sovereignty, in international law, sovereignty is defined as the legitimate exercise of power and the interpretation of international law by a state. De jure sovereignty is the legal right to do so; de facto sovereignty is the ability in fact to do so (which becomes of special concern upon the failure of the usual expectation that de jure and de facto sovereignty exist at the place and time of concern, and rest in the same organization). Foreign governments recognize the sovereignty of a state over a territory, or refuse to do so.
For instance, in theory, both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China considered themselves sovereign governments over the whole territory of mainland China and Taiwan. Though some foreign governments recognize the Republic of China as the valid state, most now recognize the People's Republic of China. However, de facto, the People's Republic of China has jurisdiction only over mainland China but not Taiwan, while the Republic of China has jurisdiction only over Taiwan and some outlying islands but not mainland China. Since ambassadors are only exchanged between sovereign high parties, the countries recognizing the People's Republic often entertain de facto but not de jure diplomatic relationships with the Republic by maintaining 'offices of representation', such as the American Institute in Taiwan, rather than embassies there.
Sovereignty may be recognized even when the sovereign body possesses no territory or its territory is under partial or total occupation by another power. The Holy See was in this position between the annexation in 1870 of the Papal States by Italy and the signing of the Lateran Treaties in 1929, when it was recognised as sovereign by many (mostly Roman Catholic) states despite possessing no territory – a situation resolved when the Lateran Treaties granted the Holy See sovereignty over the Vatican City. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is likewise a non-territorial body that claims to be a sovereign entity, though it is not universally recognized as such.
Similarly, the governments-in-exile of many European states (for instance, Norway, Netherlands or Czechoslovakia) during the Second World War were regarded as sovereign despite their territories being under foreign occupation; their governance resumed as soon as the occupation had ended. The government of Kuwait was in a similar situation vis-à-vis the Iraqi occupation of its country during 1990-1991.
[edit] Sovereignty and United States federalism
The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page.
The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page. (January 2008)
Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.
This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes.
Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (January 2008)
In federal systems of government, such as that of the United States, sovereignty also refers to powers which a state government possesses independently of the federal government; this is called "clipped sovereignty."
The question whether the individual states, particularly the Confederate States of America, remained sovereign became a matter of debate in the U.S., especially in its first century of existence:
According to the theory of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John C. Calhoun, the states had entered into an agreement from which they might withdraw if other parties broke the terms of agreement, and they remained sovereign. These individuals contributed to the theoretical basis for acts of secession, as occurred just before the American Civil War. However, they propounded this as part of a general theory of "nullification," in which a state had the right to refuse to accept any Federal law that it found to be unconstitutional, regardless of judicial review.
Likewise, according to the theory put forth by James Madison in the Federalist Papers "each State, in ratifying the Constitution, was to be considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution [was to be] a federal, and not a national constitution." In the end, Madison likewise compromised with the Anti-federalists to modify the Constitution to protect state sovereignty: At the 1787 constitutional convention a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it saying, "A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."Rives, William (1866). History of the Life and Times of James Madison 2. Retrieved on April 2008.
In his Report on the Virginia Resolutions, James Madison wrote that "The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal, above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently, that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.” Madison even made a dire prediction of what would happen if this was denied, stating that “If the deliberate exercise of dangerous powers, palpably withheld by the Constitution, could not justify the parties to it in interposing even so far as to arrest the progress of the evil, and thereby to preserve the Constitution itself, as well as to provide for the safety of the parties to it, there would be an end to all relief from usurped power, and a direct subversion of the rights specified or recognized under all the state constitutions, as well as a plain denial of the fundamental principle on which our independence itself was declared."
During the first half-century after the Constitution was ratified, the right of secession was asserted on several occasions, and various states considered secession (including, for example, the Hartford Convention after the War of 1812) in response, not a single state objected on the grounds that such was unlawful. It was not until later, c. 1830, that Andrew Jackson, Joseph Story, Daniel Webster and others began to publish the theory that secession was illegal, and that the United States was a supremely sovereign nation over the various member-states. These writers inspired Lincoln's later declaration that "no state may lawfully get out of the Union by its own mere motion", based on the premise that "the Union is older than the Constitution or the even states," in effect an assertion that the 1781 confederation had consolidated the states into a single nation.
Opponents of Lincoln's claim argue that the states, in forming the union of the Constitution, each seceded from the prior Confederated union of 1781, thereafter nine of them joined in Constitutional union on June 21, 1788 – when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution, thereby establishing it among those nine states as per Article VII; meanwhile other states refused to ratify until various conditions were met – including the addition of the Bill of Rights, ultimately ratifying by 1790. Therefore, their argument proceeds, both unions continued to exist in perpetuity between 1788 and 1790 (whereupon the final state of Rhode Island likewise joined the Constitutional union, thus ending the original confederated union. For this reason, the United States could not have been a single sovereign nation at any time prior to the Constitution, if ever.
[edit] Miscellaneous
Tribal sovereignty refers to the right of tribes or of federally recognized Native American nations to exercise limited jurisdiction within and sometimes beyond reservation boundaries.
In some regions of the world, such as Quebec and Indian Kashmir, the word "sovereignty" has become the preferred synonym for national independence (referring in this case to "national sovereignty" or the right of national self-determination, as explicited by example in U.S. President Wilson's Fourteen Points - 1918). Compare the Māori term rangatiratanga, and the concept of self-determination.
The Holy See is recognized as sovereign subject under international law (separate entity in international law vis-à-vis Vatican City, which has a very small amount of territory enclaved in the Italian capital Rome).
A case sui generis, though often contested, is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the third sovereign mini-state based in an enclave in the Italian capital (since in 1869 the Palazzo di Malta and the Villa Malta receive extraterritorial rights, in this way becoming the only "sovereign" territorial possessions of the modern Order), which is the last existing heir to one of several once militarily significant, crusader states of sovereign military orders; in 1607 its Grand masters were also made by the Holy Roman Emperor Reichsfürst ('prince of the Holy Roman Empire', granting a seat in the Reichstag or Imperial Diet, at the time the closest permanent equivalent to a UN-type general assembly; confirmed 1620), the sovereign rights never deposed, only the territories lost; several modern states still maintain full diplomatic relations (100) with the order (now de facto 'the most prestigious service club'), and the UN awarded it observer status.
Just like the office of Head of state (whether sovereignty is vested in it or not) can be vested jointly in several persons within a state, the sovereign jurisdiction over a single political territory can be shared jointly by two or more consenting powers, notably in the forms of a condominium or of (as still in Andorra) a co-principality
Thomas Hobbes wrote that Sovereignty was the very soul of the Leviathan.
Christianity and more specifically the systematic theology of Calvinism asserts that God is sovereign in all things, including salvation.
An underdeveloped aspect of sovereignty is individual sovereignty meaning the ability of individuals to have effective control over their everyday lives. Individuals have no genuine sovereignty unless they have secure income sufficient to satisfy basic need and rare is the politics or economics, such as binary economics, which consciously upholds individual sovereignty by guaranteeing that income.
[edit] Sovereign as a title
In some cases, the title sovereign is not just a generic term, but an actual (part of the) formal style of a Head of state.
Thus from 22 June 1934, to 29 May 1953, (the title "Emperor of India" was dropped as of 15 August 1947, by retroactive proclamation dated 22 June 1948), the King of South Africa was styled in the Dominion of South Africa: "By the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India and Sovereign in and over the Union of South Africa." Upon the accession of Elizabeth II to the Throne of South Africa in 1952, the title was changed to Queen of South Africa and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, parallel to the style used in almost all the other Commonwealth Realms. The pope holds ex officio the title "Sovereign of the Vatican City State" in respect to Vatican City.
The adjective form can also be used in a Monarch's full style, as in pre-imperial Russia, 16 January 1547 – 22 November 1721: Bozhiyeyu Milostiyu Velikiy/Velikaya Gosudar'/Gosudarynya Tsar'/Tsaritsa i Velikiy/Velikaya Knyaz'/Knyaginya N.N. vseya Rossiy Samodyerzhets "By the Grace of God Great Sovereign Tsar/Tsarina and Grand Prince/Princess, N.N., of All Russia, Autocrat"
[edit] See also
Seigniorage, the sovereign power to issue money
Basileus
Rousseau's classic theory of popular sovereignty
Carl Schmitt's theory of sovereignty as the power to decide the instauration of the state of exception (according to Giorgio Agamben, a response to Walter Benjamin's theorization of a "pure violence" unrelated with law)
Choice can it be
Colonization
Constitutive theory of statehood
Declarative theory of statehood
Dictatorship
Divine right of kings (Bodin, Hobbes, etc.)
Leadership
Montevideo Convention
Neo-medievalism
Non-intervention
Pareto
Parliamentary sovereignty
Popular sovereignty
Plenary authority
Self-determination
Self-ownership
Social contract theories (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau)
State
Sovereigntist
Suzerainty
Westphalian sovereignty
[edit] References
^ Of the Social Contract, Book II, Chapter III.
This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
The Changing Character of Sovereignty in International Law and International Relations by Winston P. Nagan and Craig Hammer of the Levine College of Law, University of Florida
Etymology OnLine
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
The Extinction of Nation-States
Protection of national sovereign rights under international law
WorldStatesmen
Catalan bid for 'sovereignty', BBC NEWS
The Jacobs Elements of Sovereignty
[1] George W. Bush: "Tribal sovereignty means that; it's sovereign. I mean you're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities." Washington, D.C., August 2004
[edit] External links
Philosophy portal
A Brief Primer on International Law
Official United Nations website
Official UN website on International Law
Official website of the International Court of Justice
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty"
Categories: Constitutional state types | Emergency laws | Heads of state | International law | International relations | Monarchy | Political philosophy | Philosophy of law
Hidden categories: Cleanup from October 2007 | All pages needing cleanup | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since November 2007 | Articles with limited geographic scope | NPOV disputes from January 2008 | All NPOV disputes | Articles with unsourced statements since January 2008
Comment by PDM:
It has recently been brought to my attention that the media has been maligning the word Sovereign and associating it with a CULT!
Above is one description of the word Sovereign, educate yourselves and do your own searches into the true meaning of the word. ( I am advised that Blacks Law Dictionary is a must have to educate yourself in the true meaning of the hidden language of the law.)
Just because a small number of people are finding out the truth and facts and their real rights does not make them a CULT. It just makes them EDUCATED.
Do yourselves a favour and look beyond the media,make your own enquiries, and do not let the buck stop with our Government bodies. If you have suffered as a result of Government you will understand a lot more than if you haven't.
The truth is out there.... don't let anyone brainwash you! We deserve better dont you think?
Warm Regards,
PeopleDoMatter
Another Injured Workers Story
I have sent letters to the ministers involved in workcover. One of the latest
letters is below.
I am requesting an immediate, fully transparent, independent investigation
into the serious difficulties faced by people in Australia in obtaining appropriate
health care and accurate medical reporting in regard to current and future
Workcover, Accident and other compensation claims.
In particular I request an in depth investigation into, the corruption in the
Health system, the accuracy of patient radiology scans and reporting, the
accuracy of the medical assessments and reports when involving patients
on Workcover, Motor Accident Claims and other insurance claims.
Why is there a wide spread practice in Australia of inaccurate reporting and
processing of radiology scans when it involves current and future compensation
claims especially in regards to people who have Motor accidents and WorkCover
claims.
Medical Specialists and General Practitioners subsequently accept the radiology
reports. The patient would therefore not receive appropriate medical treatment
and would be left with untreated injuries which results in the patient being in
pain and not be able to return to work or normal daily activities.
This cost saving system has and would have a negative effect on the recovery
of the injured people. Is this is a cost saving system used by the State
Governments to reduce compensation payments in CTP, WorkCover
and other insurance claims?How many people are suffering with medical
conditions left untreated due to inaccurate medical reports?
How many people have died or will die as a direct or indirect result of the
inaccurate and incomplete medical reports and medical assessments?
Are Doctors required to ignore serious medical conditions that are clearly
visible in the radiology scans but not reported on paper?
Why are Doctors paid several hundred dollars for a half hour medical
assessment and a short incomplete and inaccurate medical report on patients
with Workcover and accident claims?
Why is there an increasing number of Medical Specialists in Australia, who
will not provide medical treatment or medical assessments for people with
Workcover and accident claims?
Why is it that Neurosurgeons in South Australia will not provide an
appointment for people who are on an insurance claims?
This is very dangerous in regard to life threatening conditions.
Why is it that the Neurosurgery Department at the Royal Adelaide Hospital
will not provide outpatient treatment for new patients who have active
CTP and insurance claims?
Is this unsafe cost saving system used in the emergency departments of
the public hospital system to cut costs on medical treatment for patients who
don't have private health insurance?
Is, or at anytime in the past, the Medical Indemnity cover for Medical
practitioners in Australia subsidized by the Government?If the Government
subsidies exist or existed, what are or were the requirements by Doctors
in return for these subsidies?
Do Medical practitioners obtain any advantages in return for producing
inaccurate and incomplete medical reports in regard to Workcover, Accident
and other insurance claims patients?
Do Insurance Company in particular EML and Allianz have any involvement
in the inaccurate reporting of radiology films and the incomplete and
inaccurate medical reports and medical assessments of injured people on
Workcover and accident claims?
Why does the medical and rehabilitation treatment have to be agreed to by
a claims manager, who does not have a medical degree, before treatment can
begin for the injured person?
Is this a way of limiting the medical treatment costs of the people on Workcover,
Motor accident and other insurance claims?
Why is there an arrangement which allows Doctors to bill Medicare and the
insurer for treatment given to insurance claim patients?
Are the people of Australia on Workcover and accident claims being denied
appropriate medical care because of inaccurate reports and opinions from
medical professionals?
Mr. Tony Abbott MP asked Dr Rohan Hammett, Principal Medical Adviser
to the TGA, to meet with me to discuss the Medical Research I have completed.
Dr Rohan Hammett contacted Professor Chris Baggoley in relation to the
several serious problems brought to his attention in obtaining appropriate
health care for my family and for people who have WorkCover and Motor
Accident insurance claims.
I attended a meeting in August 2007 with, Professor Chris Baggoley Chief
Medical Officer of South Australia, Dr R. Webb Director Public Health and
Clinical Coordination, Assoc Professor Kaye Challinger Executive Director
Acute Services Central Northern Adelaide Health Service, Dr Rima Staugas
Chief Executive of Children's, Youth and Women's Health Service in South
Australia. At the meeting it was agreed all of my families radiology films
would be accurately re-reported, followed by appropriate medical assessments
and medical treatment for my family and me.
In January 2008 a second meeting was called by Dr. R. Webb, to discuss the
progress and to listen to my views. There had been no progress in obtaining
accurate re-reporting of all our radiology films or appropriate medical treatment.
Mr. John Hill MP, Health Minister of South Australia, had also requested me
to attend the meeting so as to move forward in finding a solution to obtaining
quality health care in Australia.
A positive outcome or solution to the persistent problems of the quality in
radiology scans, incorrect reporting, inability to obtain appropriate medical
treatment for my family and me, or for the people injured at work, in car
accidents, or other insurance claims, has not been achieved during the meetings
with the Health Department Representatives.
Ms. Toni Hoffman made several complaints to the Health Departments in
raising her concerns of patient safety at Bundaberg Hospital, she was disregarded.
I, like Ms. Hoffman will continue to raise these concerns until a solution is
found.
I, again, request an immediate, fully transparent, independent investigation
into the corruption in the Health system, in particular the accuracy of patient
radiology scans and reporting, medical assessments and reports when
involving patients on Workcover, Motor Accident Claims and other insurance
claims.
(Sent to me by Jo WCV)
letters is below.
I am requesting an immediate, fully transparent, independent investigation
into the serious difficulties faced by people in Australia in obtaining appropriate
health care and accurate medical reporting in regard to current and future
Workcover, Accident and other compensation claims.
In particular I request an in depth investigation into, the corruption in the
Health system, the accuracy of patient radiology scans and reporting, the
accuracy of the medical assessments and reports when involving patients
on Workcover, Motor Accident Claims and other insurance claims.
Why is there a wide spread practice in Australia of inaccurate reporting and
processing of radiology scans when it involves current and future compensation
claims especially in regards to people who have Motor accidents and WorkCover
claims.
Medical Specialists and General Practitioners subsequently accept the radiology
reports. The patient would therefore not receive appropriate medical treatment
and would be left with untreated injuries which results in the patient being in
pain and not be able to return to work or normal daily activities.
This cost saving system has and would have a negative effect on the recovery
of the injured people. Is this is a cost saving system used by the State
Governments to reduce compensation payments in CTP, WorkCover
and other insurance claims?How many people are suffering with medical
conditions left untreated due to inaccurate medical reports?
How many people have died or will die as a direct or indirect result of the
inaccurate and incomplete medical reports and medical assessments?
Are Doctors required to ignore serious medical conditions that are clearly
visible in the radiology scans but not reported on paper?
Why are Doctors paid several hundred dollars for a half hour medical
assessment and a short incomplete and inaccurate medical report on patients
with Workcover and accident claims?
Why is there an increasing number of Medical Specialists in Australia, who
will not provide medical treatment or medical assessments for people with
Workcover and accident claims?
Why is it that Neurosurgeons in South Australia will not provide an
appointment for people who are on an insurance claims?
This is very dangerous in regard to life threatening conditions.
Why is it that the Neurosurgery Department at the Royal Adelaide Hospital
will not provide outpatient treatment for new patients who have active
CTP and insurance claims?
Is this unsafe cost saving system used in the emergency departments of
the public hospital system to cut costs on medical treatment for patients who
don't have private health insurance?
Is, or at anytime in the past, the Medical Indemnity cover for Medical
practitioners in Australia subsidized by the Government?If the Government
subsidies exist or existed, what are or were the requirements by Doctors
in return for these subsidies?
Do Medical practitioners obtain any advantages in return for producing
inaccurate and incomplete medical reports in regard to Workcover, Accident
and other insurance claims patients?
Do Insurance Company in particular EML and Allianz have any involvement
in the inaccurate reporting of radiology films and the incomplete and
inaccurate medical reports and medical assessments of injured people on
Workcover and accident claims?
Why does the medical and rehabilitation treatment have to be agreed to by
a claims manager, who does not have a medical degree, before treatment can
begin for the injured person?
Is this a way of limiting the medical treatment costs of the people on Workcover,
Motor accident and other insurance claims?
Why is there an arrangement which allows Doctors to bill Medicare and the
insurer for treatment given to insurance claim patients?
Are the people of Australia on Workcover and accident claims being denied
appropriate medical care because of inaccurate reports and opinions from
medical professionals?
Mr. Tony Abbott MP asked Dr Rohan Hammett, Principal Medical Adviser
to the TGA, to meet with me to discuss the Medical Research I have completed.
Dr Rohan Hammett contacted Professor Chris Baggoley in relation to the
several serious problems brought to his attention in obtaining appropriate
health care for my family and for people who have WorkCover and Motor
Accident insurance claims.
I attended a meeting in August 2007 with, Professor Chris Baggoley Chief
Medical Officer of South Australia, Dr R. Webb Director Public Health and
Clinical Coordination, Assoc Professor Kaye Challinger Executive Director
Acute Services Central Northern Adelaide Health Service, Dr Rima Staugas
Chief Executive of Children's, Youth and Women's Health Service in South
Australia. At the meeting it was agreed all of my families radiology films
would be accurately re-reported, followed by appropriate medical assessments
and medical treatment for my family and me.
In January 2008 a second meeting was called by Dr. R. Webb, to discuss the
progress and to listen to my views. There had been no progress in obtaining
accurate re-reporting of all our radiology films or appropriate medical treatment.
Mr. John Hill MP, Health Minister of South Australia, had also requested me
to attend the meeting so as to move forward in finding a solution to obtaining
quality health care in Australia.
A positive outcome or solution to the persistent problems of the quality in
radiology scans, incorrect reporting, inability to obtain appropriate medical
treatment for my family and me, or for the people injured at work, in car
accidents, or other insurance claims, has not been achieved during the meetings
with the Health Department Representatives.
Ms. Toni Hoffman made several complaints to the Health Departments in
raising her concerns of patient safety at Bundaberg Hospital, she was disregarded.
I, like Ms. Hoffman will continue to raise these concerns until a solution is
found.
I, again, request an immediate, fully transparent, independent investigation
into the corruption in the Health system, in particular the accuracy of patient
radiology scans and reporting, medical assessments and reports when
involving patients on Workcover, Motor Accident Claims and other insurance
claims.
(Sent to me by Jo WCV)
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
AUS GOVERNMENT TO CENSOR INTERNET
Source AustraliaMatters.com
AustraliaMatters.com comment: ISP Internet control by government described below in the CNET article is a two edged sword. Web sites like ours here would no doubt be targeted for censorship as well. Free software to stop children accessing porn sites etc has been around for many years. Sites like ours here that calls a spade a spade, are more so the reason for the new sort control.
No opt-out of ISP filtered Internet
Policy to be set after trial
Darren Pauli 13/10/2008 15:10:00
Computerworld
Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government's pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say.
Under the government's $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material.
Pundits say consumers have been lulled into believing the opt-out proviso would remove content filtering altogether.
The government will iron-out policy and implementation of the Internet content filtering software following an upcoming trial of the technology, according to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the filters will be mandatory for all Australians.
“Labor’s plan for cyber-safety will require ISPs to offer a clean feed Internet service to all homes, schools and public Internet points accessible by children,” Marshall said.
“The upcoming field pilot of ISP filtering technology will look at various aspects of filtering, including effectiveness, ease of circumvention, the impact on internet access speeds and cost.”
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contacted by Computerworld say blanket content filtering will cripple Internet speeds because the technology is not up to scratch.
Online libertarians claim the blacklists could be expanded to censor material such as euthanasia, drugs and protest.
Internode network engineer Mark Newton said many users falsely believe the opt-out proviso will remove content filtering.
“Users can opt-out of the 'additional material' blacklist (referred to in a department press release, which is a list of things unsuitable for children, but there is no opt-out for 'illegal content'”, Newton said.
“That is the way the testing was formulated, the way the upcoming live trials will run, and the way the policy is framed; to believe otherwise is to believe that a government department would go to the lengths of declaring that some kind of Internet content is illegal, then allow an opt-out.
“Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block it, then it will be required to be blocked — end of story.”
Newton said advisers to Minister Conroy have told ISPs that Internet content filtering will be mandatory for all users.
The government reported it does not expected to prescribe which filtering technologies ISPs can use, and will only set blacklists of filtered content, supplied by the Australia Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
EFA chair Dale Clapperton said in a previous article that Internet content filtering could lead to censorship of drugs, political dissident and other legal freedoms.
“Once the public has allowed the system to be established, it is much easier to block other material,” Clapperton said.
According to preliminary trials, the best Internet content filters would incorrectly block about 10,000 Web pages from one million.
computerworld sourse link
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Australia pushes further Web censorship
By Jo Best
Special to CNET News.com
Published: September 21, 2007 6:09 AM PDT
A bill introduced this week by Australia's Parliament would give the Australian federal police the power to control which sites can and cannot be viewed by Australian Web surfers.
Introduced on Thursday, the bill--titled the Communications Legislation Amendment (Crime or Terrorism Related Internet Content) Bill 2007--would empower the federal police to alter the "blacklist" of sites that are currently prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
The list currently includes pornography and "offensive material." However, under the amendment, federal police would be able to add other sites to the list, including content that the AFP Commissioner "has reason to believe...is crime- or terrorism-related content."
The definition of material that may be liable for censorship includes Internet content that "encourages, incites or induces," "facilitate(s)" or "has, or is likely to have, the effect of facilitating" a crime.
Once such content has been identified by the AFP, Internet service providers may be responsible for blocking their users from accessing it.
According to the government, the legislation is designed to target phishing and terrorist sites, among other online criminal activity.
"The new arrangements will allow harmful sites to be more quickly added to software filters," said Eric Abetz, a senator for Tasmania, who introduced the bill. "Of course the best outcome is for these sites to be taken down and their hosts prosecuted. But this takes time, particularly as most of these sites are hosted overseas.
"Rapid blacklisting means that the damage these sites can do can be more quickly reduced whilst takedown and prosecution processes are pursued, usually overseas," Abetz said.
Privacy groups have already criticized the legislation as an attack on free speech.
"This government's extremism has reached new heights today," said the chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation, Roger Clarke.
"How can a politician claim the right to hold office if they set out to undermine the critical democratic right of freedom of speech, and blatantly decline to evaluate the impact of measures put before the Parliament?"
Jo Best of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.
AustraliaMatters.com comment: ISP Internet control by government described below in the CNET article is a two edged sword. Web sites like ours here would no doubt be targeted for censorship as well. Free software to stop children accessing porn sites etc has been around for many years. Sites like ours here that calls a spade a spade, are more so the reason for the new sort control.
No opt-out of ISP filtered Internet
Policy to be set after trial
Darren Pauli 13/10/2008 15:10:00
Computerworld
Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government's pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say.
Under the government's $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material.
Pundits say consumers have been lulled into believing the opt-out proviso would remove content filtering altogether.
The government will iron-out policy and implementation of the Internet content filtering software following an upcoming trial of the technology, according to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the filters will be mandatory for all Australians.
“Labor’s plan for cyber-safety will require ISPs to offer a clean feed Internet service to all homes, schools and public Internet points accessible by children,” Marshall said.
“The upcoming field pilot of ISP filtering technology will look at various aspects of filtering, including effectiveness, ease of circumvention, the impact on internet access speeds and cost.”
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contacted by Computerworld say blanket content filtering will cripple Internet speeds because the technology is not up to scratch.
Online libertarians claim the blacklists could be expanded to censor material such as euthanasia, drugs and protest.
Internode network engineer Mark Newton said many users falsely believe the opt-out proviso will remove content filtering.
“Users can opt-out of the 'additional material' blacklist (referred to in a department press release, which is a list of things unsuitable for children, but there is no opt-out for 'illegal content'”, Newton said.
“That is the way the testing was formulated, the way the upcoming live trials will run, and the way the policy is framed; to believe otherwise is to believe that a government department would go to the lengths of declaring that some kind of Internet content is illegal, then allow an opt-out.
“Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block it, then it will be required to be blocked — end of story.”
Newton said advisers to Minister Conroy have told ISPs that Internet content filtering will be mandatory for all users.
The government reported it does not expected to prescribe which filtering technologies ISPs can use, and will only set blacklists of filtered content, supplied by the Australia Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
EFA chair Dale Clapperton said in a previous article that Internet content filtering could lead to censorship of drugs, political dissident and other legal freedoms.
“Once the public has allowed the system to be established, it is much easier to block other material,” Clapperton said.
According to preliminary trials, the best Internet content filters would incorrectly block about 10,000 Web pages from one million.
computerworld sourse link
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Australia pushes further Web censorship
By Jo Best
Special to CNET News.com
Published: September 21, 2007 6:09 AM PDT
A bill introduced this week by Australia's Parliament would give the Australian federal police the power to control which sites can and cannot be viewed by Australian Web surfers.
Introduced on Thursday, the bill--titled the Communications Legislation Amendment (Crime or Terrorism Related Internet Content) Bill 2007--would empower the federal police to alter the "blacklist" of sites that are currently prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
The list currently includes pornography and "offensive material." However, under the amendment, federal police would be able to add other sites to the list, including content that the AFP Commissioner "has reason to believe...is crime- or terrorism-related content."
The definition of material that may be liable for censorship includes Internet content that "encourages, incites or induces," "facilitate(s)" or "has, or is likely to have, the effect of facilitating" a crime.
Once such content has been identified by the AFP, Internet service providers may be responsible for blocking their users from accessing it.
According to the government, the legislation is designed to target phishing and terrorist sites, among other online criminal activity.
"The new arrangements will allow harmful sites to be more quickly added to software filters," said Eric Abetz, a senator for Tasmania, who introduced the bill. "Of course the best outcome is for these sites to be taken down and their hosts prosecuted. But this takes time, particularly as most of these sites are hosted overseas.
"Rapid blacklisting means that the damage these sites can do can be more quickly reduced whilst takedown and prosecution processes are pursued, usually overseas," Abetz said.
Privacy groups have already criticized the legislation as an attack on free speech.
"This government's extremism has reached new heights today," said the chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation, Roger Clarke.
"How can a politician claim the right to hold office if they set out to undermine the critical democratic right of freedom of speech, and blatantly decline to evaluate the impact of measures put before the Parliament?"
Jo Best of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Download Documents and Further Information from Basicfraud website
Basic Fraud (PDM:SOURCE: http://www.basicfraud.com/main-0/# )
AUSTRALIA - THE CONCEALED COLONY "The Truth Will Set Us Free"
Downloads
Are you being pursued unfairly through an alleged Court of Law by the Banks, Local Councils, Government Departments (such as the Police for traffic or parking infringements), or alternatively hounded by Debt Collection Agencies and don't know what you can do to fight back?
Once you understand that the Government (Federal, State and Local Councils) including the various Government Departments (Tax or Police Departments, etc.) and the whole Judicial System are totally illegal and invalid for the reasons covered within this website and that if your Human Rights are violated, you can then place on notice those people or institutions wanting to infringe on you financially. (Refer to the document called 'You have been put on Notice!!!' found also at the BOTTOM of this page, or alternatively the relevant defence documents if you have a Court Matter pending).
If they then continue to persist with their action to force you to pay against your will, whether by a Court Order or a Letter of Demand, you may be able to pursue a Human Rights Compensation Claim against them.
The following documentation below is provided as a guide to allow you to accumulate the evidence you will need to pursue a claim for compensation against individuals in your country and/or the British government which assists them. If someone is impinging on your human rights (including economic rights) you might well be in a position to make a compensation claim for Human Rights abuse.
To do so you will need all the evidence you can accumulate against those from whom you will be claiming. Imagine that at some point in the near future, you will have to prove everything you did to notify and educate these people. For each and everyone against whom you are collecting evidence, you will need to have everything documented as proof for when YOU pursue them!!
This will include the presiding Judge or Magistrate, the Police Prosecutor or the other opposing Law Firm and their Solicitor, the Police Officer or the Sheriff acting on behalf of the Court, any Debt Collector or Collection Agency and the other party instigating and continuing the action against you, after you have placed them on notice.
Buy yourself a lever-arch folder and keep copies of all your documentation somewhere safe.
Keep in mind that if you approach most lawyers (even yours) with this information, they will most likely dispute the information for three reasons. The first is that it is a possible threat to them financially, secondly that unless they have qualifications in International and Constitutional Law, their belief system will not accept the evidence, or thirdly they do not want to go up against the Judicial System and the Law Society!
Under the Human Rights Charter, the Compensation Claim for 'Economic Deprivation' under British Law, is at the top end of the penalty scale with a maximum multi-million UK £ (Pound) payout. Now we are not stating or guaranteeing that you will ever receive that, or any amount of money, however unless you use this information as part of your defence and retain the evidence of doing so, you will not be able to mount a claim.
In order for us to rectify this rampant corruption in our political and judicial systems and bring about the desired result to change these systems, we need to educate the many millions of people in the countries that are affected, as this will be the most decisive way in which we will win a victory, as these people in power will not give up their positions easily. Only through the masses of people being made aware of the truth, will positive change become imminent!
It will also be the only way to ensure any possible Human Rights claim, in which if eligible, you will receive a lucrative compensation payout for the duress, anguish and financial suffering you have endured!
So start right now by forwarding this website link to ALL your family, friends and colleagues!! Below are some links for the Human Rights Act, 1998 (UK), for you to reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Act_1998
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1998/ukpga_19980042_en_1
http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/the-human-rights-act/index.html
http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/hra.htm
http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Legal/Legal+briefing+The+Human+Rights+Act+1998.htm
These are some links for the Human Rights Act, 1998 (UK) Compensation
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1998/ukpga_19980042_en_3
http://www.ukcia.org/pollaw/lawlibrary/humanrightsact1998.html
Instructions on How to Submit Your Documents
Annexure A
Annexure B
Annexure C
Court Registrar Letter
Queens Letter
Queens Letter PERSONAL COPY
Baroness Cathy Ashtons Letter
Baroness Cathy Ashtons Letter PERSONAL COPY
Generic Defence Document
Local Council Letter
Queens Alternative Letter
Queens Alternative Letter PERSONAL COPY
RTA Letter
Supreme Court Common Law Defence
The Deputy Commissioner of Taxation Defence
(PDM: For these above documents:Please go directly to the downloads section of http://www.basicfraud.com/main-0/# copy and paste the link directly to your browser, and any other link that is not "clickable".)
The document below can be printed off (recommended double-sided) and given to a Police Officer, Sheriff, Debt Collector and to anyone else who alleges they have authority, who are either intending to issue you with a Traffic or Parking Infringement Notice, a Court Document or maybe a Letter of Demand.
It is not guaranteed to work or persuade them from proceeding, however if you do present it to someone who is impinging on your human rights (including economic rights), then make sure you get their full particulars, so in the future when the truth is revealed about our invalid Judicial System you might be in a position to make a compensation claim for Human Rights Abuse.
YOU HAVE BEEN PUT ON NOTICE!!!
Copyright 2008
AUSTRALIA - THE CONCEALED COLONY "The Truth Will Set Us Free"
Downloads
Are you being pursued unfairly through an alleged Court of Law by the Banks, Local Councils, Government Departments (such as the Police for traffic or parking infringements), or alternatively hounded by Debt Collection Agencies and don't know what you can do to fight back?
Once you understand that the Government (Federal, State and Local Councils) including the various Government Departments (Tax or Police Departments, etc.) and the whole Judicial System are totally illegal and invalid for the reasons covered within this website and that if your Human Rights are violated, you can then place on notice those people or institutions wanting to infringe on you financially. (Refer to the document called 'You have been put on Notice!!!' found also at the BOTTOM of this page, or alternatively the relevant defence documents if you have a Court Matter pending).
If they then continue to persist with their action to force you to pay against your will, whether by a Court Order or a Letter of Demand, you may be able to pursue a Human Rights Compensation Claim against them.
The following documentation below is provided as a guide to allow you to accumulate the evidence you will need to pursue a claim for compensation against individuals in your country and/or the British government which assists them. If someone is impinging on your human rights (including economic rights) you might well be in a position to make a compensation claim for Human Rights abuse.
To do so you will need all the evidence you can accumulate against those from whom you will be claiming. Imagine that at some point in the near future, you will have to prove everything you did to notify and educate these people. For each and everyone against whom you are collecting evidence, you will need to have everything documented as proof for when YOU pursue them!!
This will include the presiding Judge or Magistrate, the Police Prosecutor or the other opposing Law Firm and their Solicitor, the Police Officer or the Sheriff acting on behalf of the Court, any Debt Collector or Collection Agency and the other party instigating and continuing the action against you, after you have placed them on notice.
Buy yourself a lever-arch folder and keep copies of all your documentation somewhere safe.
Keep in mind that if you approach most lawyers (even yours) with this information, they will most likely dispute the information for three reasons. The first is that it is a possible threat to them financially, secondly that unless they have qualifications in International and Constitutional Law, their belief system will not accept the evidence, or thirdly they do not want to go up against the Judicial System and the Law Society!
Under the Human Rights Charter, the Compensation Claim for 'Economic Deprivation' under British Law, is at the top end of the penalty scale with a maximum multi-million UK £ (Pound) payout. Now we are not stating or guaranteeing that you will ever receive that, or any amount of money, however unless you use this information as part of your defence and retain the evidence of doing so, you will not be able to mount a claim.
In order for us to rectify this rampant corruption in our political and judicial systems and bring about the desired result to change these systems, we need to educate the many millions of people in the countries that are affected, as this will be the most decisive way in which we will win a victory, as these people in power will not give up their positions easily. Only through the masses of people being made aware of the truth, will positive change become imminent!
It will also be the only way to ensure any possible Human Rights claim, in which if eligible, you will receive a lucrative compensation payout for the duress, anguish and financial suffering you have endured!
So start right now by forwarding this website link to ALL your family, friends and colleagues!! Below are some links for the Human Rights Act, 1998 (UK), for you to reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Act_1998
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1998/ukpga_19980042_en_1
http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/the-human-rights-act/index.html
http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/hra.htm
http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Legal/Legal+briefing+The+Human+Rights+Act+1998.htm
These are some links for the Human Rights Act, 1998 (UK) Compensation
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1998/ukpga_19980042_en_3
http://www.ukcia.org/pollaw/lawlibrary/humanrightsact1998.html
Instructions on How to Submit Your Documents
Annexure A
Annexure B
Annexure C
Court Registrar Letter
Queens Letter
Queens Letter PERSONAL COPY
Baroness Cathy Ashtons Letter
Baroness Cathy Ashtons Letter PERSONAL COPY
Generic Defence Document
Local Council Letter
Queens Alternative Letter
Queens Alternative Letter PERSONAL COPY
RTA Letter
Supreme Court Common Law Defence
The Deputy Commissioner of Taxation Defence
(PDM: For these above documents:Please go directly to the downloads section of http://www.basicfraud.com/main-0/# copy and paste the link directly to your browser, and any other link that is not "clickable".)
The document below can be printed off (recommended double-sided) and given to a Police Officer, Sheriff, Debt Collector and to anyone else who alleges they have authority, who are either intending to issue you with a Traffic or Parking Infringement Notice, a Court Document or maybe a Letter of Demand.
It is not guaranteed to work or persuade them from proceeding, however if you do present it to someone who is impinging on your human rights (including economic rights), then make sure you get their full particulars, so in the future when the truth is revealed about our invalid Judicial System you might be in a position to make a compensation claim for Human Rights Abuse.
YOU HAVE BEEN PUT ON NOTICE!!!
Copyright 2008
Australian Government or is it?
Synopsis Videos Documents Articles Australia - The Concealed Colony Australian Government Australian Law Correspondence PM Keven Rudd General Correspondence Her Majesty's Government Compare the Queen's Signature Litigation UK Legislation Vice-Regal Appointments Miscellaneous
(PDM Source: http://www.basicfraud.com/main-0/# Posted with permission granted THANK YOU)
SYNOPSIS
We are involved with a growing number of Australian people – numbering in the many hundreds of thousands, at least - who have for some time become aware, concerned and disgusted about the corrupt behaviour of both the Australian and British Governments.
It involves the British Parliament, a succession of British monarchs (including Elizabeth II), other members of the British royal family, British and Australian politicians and the Australian, British and European Courts. As should soon be evident, news stories rarely get any bigger, have as many consequences, or as many people working against the truth.
This is without doubt the greatest perpetrated fraud within our modern times, which has continued for decades and definitely will be one of, if not, the largest news & media story ever uncovered. The documented facts on our website will show how the corrupt past and present British and Australian politicians, the judicial systems of two countries, as well as the European Court of Human Rights, have deliberately lied, misled and manipulated the Australian people for their own personal financial gain, greed and political appointments.
We assure you that every claim and accusation within this Website can be easily substantiated and verified with the official evidence, court documents and even Australian and British Government legal records, which we have uploaded for you to do your own research.
From 1919 every Australian Politician, Judge, Magistrate, Defence Force Personnel, Federal & State Police Officer, Sheriff, Local Mayor, etc., in other words the people in Authority, have ALL either knowingly or not, committed an ‘Act of Treason’ against the Australian People, by swearing allegiance and subscribing to an oath to serve Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland and therefore the government of a Power foreign to Australia.
Since 1919 the Monarchs of the United Kingdoms (and there have been two: the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland and of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) have allegedly appointed a Governor-General, who has in turn sworn into office the Federal Government of Australia. This Federal Government then had the rights and privileges to administer the laws and run the Commonwealth of Australia.
However, for reasons outlined in the documentation provided, these Monarchs have had NO legal basis to do so! Elizabeth II has NEVER been crowned the "Queen of Australia" and has absolutely NO legal authority within Australia!
You may then start to understand how our Australian Constitution, the appointment of our Australian Governments, and the establishment of various government departments have been for decades - illegal and invalid.
The whole Judicial System in Australia is not only invalid, it is also corrupt!!! Most Judges (especially those in the High, Federal and State Supreme Courts) are aware of this invalidity and know that their own appointments are totally unlawful. However, these same Judges have continued to preside and rule against hundreds of people, even when the invalidity of their appointments and position were actually questioned and also challenged in legal documents filed in their own courts and who were aware of this when making their rulings! Innocent people have been ordered to pay fines, had property re-possessed, been forced into bankruptcy or imprisoned by corrupt Judges who are more interested in protecting their own livelihoods, positions, power, superannuation and the status quo.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is also an organization with NO lawful authority. Yet people once again had their lives ruined to the point of suicide for being unable to pay their supposed taxes.
In October 2005 an action against the British Government was submitted and accepted by the European Court of Human Rights for “Human Rights Abuse”. The matter related to a legal action by Mr. David Claude Fitzgibbon, Australian Barrister-at-Law, for Human Rights Abuse against himself as someone resident in Australia. The British Government had 90 days to lodge their Defence, which was NOT entered. This was perhaps the FIRST time in the history of the Court that a Defence had not been lodged!
In October 2006, the Court mysteriously ruled that there was NO evidence of Human Rights offences having occurred within Australia. How can you possibly lose a court case when the British Government does not even submit a Defence, especially when there was an abundance of overwhelming evidence to substantiate the action filed by Mr Fitzgibbon?? What deals were struck in order to have the case quashed??? (Mr. Fitzgibbon was told personally by Justice Lightman, that Australian Prime Minister, John W. Howard actually put pressure on him to decide as he did).
Refer to: Mr Justice Lightman of the High Court Of Justice Chancery Division DAVID CLAUDE FITZGIBBON -v- HM ATTORNEY GENERAL
http://www.basicfraud.com/main-0/content/pdfs/Litigation/Mr%20Justice%20Lightman%20of%20the%20High%20Court%20Of%20Justice%20Chancery%20Division%20_%20DAVID%20CLAUDE%20FITZGIBBON%20-v-%20HM%20ATTORNEY%20GENERAL.pdf
"The continued usage of the Australian Constitution Act ( UK ) by the Australian Governments and the judiciary is a confidence trick of monstrous proportions played upon the Australian people with the intent of maintaining power. It remains an Act of the United Kingdom. After joining the League of Nations in 1919 Australia became a sovereign nation. It had no further legal power to use, alter or otherwise tamper with another nation’s legislation. Authority over the Australian Constitution Act lies not with the Australian government nor with the Australian people, it rests solely with the UK. Only they have the authority to repeal this legislation ..."
The late Professor G. Clements
Eminent UK QC and emeritus Professor in Law at Cambridge University
Most people would agree that Australia is recognised globally as an Independent & Sovereign Nation.
Well what does the word ‘Sovereignty’ mean?
According to ‘Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia’:
Sovereignty ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty ) is the exclusive right to have control over an area of governance, people, or oneself. In constitutional and international law, the concept also pertains to a government possessing full control over its own affairs within a territorial or geographical area or limit, and in certain context to various organs possessing legal jurisdiction in their own chief, rather than by mandate or under supervision.
The United Nations Resolution adopted by The General Assembly 50/172
( http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/50/ares50-172.htm ) Respect for the principles of national sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of States in their electoral processes, states:
1. Reiterates that, by virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, all peoples have the right, freely and without external interference, to determine their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and that every State has the duty to respect that right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter;
4. Reaffirms further that electoral assistance to Member States should be provided by the United Nations only at the request and with the consent of specific sovereign States, by virtue of resolutions adopted by the Security Council or the General Assembly in each case, in strict conformity with the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of States, or in special circumstances such as cases of decolonization, or in the context of regional or international peace processes;
7. Reaffirms that all countries have the obligation under the Charter to respect the right of others to self-determination and to determine freely their political status and pursue their economic, social and cultural development;
By all accounts it seems that Her Majesty Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and also termed “Queen of Australia” has no detrimental influence or significant consequence over the citizens of Australia. Or does she??
Well...the first thing we have to do is to establish whether the position of "Queen of Australia" does exist? Now our first issue is that Elizabeth II has never been crowned the "Queen of Australia". So what does that mean if we have a fictitious Monarch and what are the consequences?
A letter from the 'Commonwealth of Australia Attorney' General's Department dated 7th May, 2001 states that Mr Henke wanted to see a copy of the document issued by the government of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) empowering the Queen of Australia to use the Royal Sign Manual. (Refer: The Attorney-General's Department, the Commonwealth of Australia regarding 'the Queen of Australia' )
In the 2nd paragraph of that letter is the response which clearly states that there is NO SUCH DOCUMENT!!
Then there is the response from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom in London, to Mr William Bolton that the Queen has NO EXECUTIVE POWER within the Commonwealth of Australia. (Refer: Letter form Foreign & Commonwealth Office regarding the Queen )
By letter dated 18th October 2004, this time to Mr Sempf and once again under the Freedom Of Information Act, similar material was sought and this time the same response was received from the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet. (Refer: Lyall Sempf Response Letter from Australian Attorney General's-Department re Queen of Australia )
Yet clearly on Official Government documents such as the ‘Commissions of Governor-Generals or Governors’ both here and the UK, we can see that they contain the words QUEEN OF AUSTRALIA! [Click on the Tab 'Documents' and then refer to the link 'Vice Regal Appointments'].
Now, whenever you sign a legal document, be it an Affidavit, a Loan Contract from a Bank or your Will, you must always sign on the bottom of the page... it means that you agree with what is written above your signature.
Why then does the Queen sign her name on any legal Australian document at the top of the page? [Click on the Tab 'Documents' and then refer to the link 'Compare the Queen’s Signatures'].
Is it because she knows and understands the significant problems and ramifications with what is evident here in Australia and she does not want to be dragged through the European Court of Human Rights? She is fully aware and has known this for many years. [Click on the Tab 'Documents' and then under 'Correspondence' refer to some of the previous letters sent to her, such as:
W Levick Letter to Queen Elizabeth 4th January 2005]
So, if we have now established that there is NO Queen of Australia and that there is NO Royal Sign Manual, this then makes ALL the appointments of Governors-General of the Commonwealth of Australia NULL & VOID!!
So, we now have a Governor-General who has not been appointed legally, who unlawfully swears the Prime Minister and his Cabinet into Office, which now makes that Prime Minister’s appointment and his cabinet also NULL & VOID!!
So each and every one of the Government Departments whether Federal or State, the Local Councils, the Judicial System and the laws of the land, are now ALL totally NULL & VOID!!!
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Do you recognize that if the root is poisoned the fruit is poisoned?
Do you understand the difference between 'Authority' and 'Power'?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An Article by Peter Gillies
Question: Has the Queen of the United Kingdom committed a crime?
Question: Should the Australian Government be allowed to vote in the United Nations General Assembly?
At the outset I say that I am not a lawyer. I am an ordinary bloke who happens to believe in a level playing field. I believe that those that make the laws should be the first to obey them. This is not the case in Australia.
Some time ago I had a dispute with my local council. A senior planner told me that the council knew they were breaking the law, but that they did not care. “We’ve always done it” he said. They claim that all their authority derives from the Local Government Act 1993. So I set about finding what authority they actually did have.
What a can of worms I opened. Talk about lies and deceit.
First of all I went to our 'Australian' Constitution, which is not really ours. It is an Act of the UK Parliament and has never been part of Australian legislation. My first thought on finding this was, "How can this be right in an independent country?"
However, this aside, I did ascertain that what powers have not been conferred by the Constitution cannot be taken. That is hard legal fact. The Constitution allows for Federal and State governments but does not allow for a third level of government. A Constitutional inquiry (1985) also found this so it was decided to take it to a referendum of the people, which is the only way we can alter the Constitution. This referendum was held in 1988.
The question was asked, "Do you want to recognize Local Government?" All States came back with a resounding "NO" vote. Despite this denial by the people, all State Governments later passed a Local Government Act.
Not good so far, I thought, for a supposed democracy. But I looked further. For a government to be legally valid in Australia, under both State and Federal Constitutions, the Government must consist of three parts. It must have a lower and upper house, and it must have a Governor (State) or Governor General (Federal) who has been appointed by the Queen of the United Kingdom under her Royal Sign Manual.
OK. So now it’s getting really weird. First Australia, this independent country, has as its supreme law – the ‘Australian’ Constitution - a law of another nation. Then, for the governments of this independent nation to be legally valid they must have a representative appointed by the leader of another nation, appointed according to the laws of that other nation’s parliament. Surely this could not be right?
So I checked with the United Nations. They told me that one of the essential ingredients of the Charter of the United Nations is that the laws of one independent nation cannot be enforced within the territories of another independent nation.
So… if the Queen has done what her own UK Act says, and has appointed a State Governor, or a Federal Governor General in Australia, then is she guilty of committing an offence against international law?
But had she really appointed these people?
I started with the Local Government Act of New South Wales. The Governor who gave this Act Royal Assent was Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair. I emailed the House of Lords and asked, "Where are records of appointments made under the Sign Manual kept? They promptly replied that they were all kept in Folio C_ _ in the UK Archives and provided a link to that web site. I return emailed and thanked them but asked, "What about records of appointments of persons overseas?" They replied, "Records of ALL appointments under the Sign Manual are kept in this folio in the UK Archives."
The UK Archives web site quickly provided the subject folio, but it is not readily accessible to the general public. However, a list of accredited researchers was provided so I engaged one to locate and forward a copy of the documents of appointment of Peter Sinclair.
She eventually came back with the reply, "There is no record of any such appointment."
"How odd!" says I. So I placed a Freedom of Information request to the NSW Premier for a copy of the documents. They definitely did NOT want to give them to me.
While I was waiting for them, I went to the Newcastle University Law Library and found the UK laws relating to appointments made under the Royal Sign Manual. There are four essential ingredients necessary for an appointment to be valid. These are: -
1.The person MUST be a British Subject;
2.The appointment MUST be signed by the Queen of the United Kingdom;
3.It MUST be countersigned by a senior member of the UK parliament; and, most importantly,
4.It MUST bear the Great Seal of the United Kingdom.
OK. So these rules are set in concrete within UK legislation.
First, I found that Peter Sinclair is an Australian Citizen. He is NOT a British Subject.
Second, when the documents arrived, they did have a signature I presume was that of the Queen of the United Kingdom. However it was at the top right hand corner of the front page, BEFORE any other writing on the document. There was NO signature where it said, "Signed at Our Court of St James on….".
Third, there was NO signature of ANY member of the UK parliament.
Fourth, there was NO Great Seal of the United Kingdom.
AHA!
We now have NO record of the appointment at the UK Archives, and NO compliance with the various UK Acts that dictate what the Queen must do with regard to appointments under the Sign Manual. But what about other Governors, and what about Governors General? A similar check on several other ‘appointees’ at various dates revealed a similar situation.
Obviously the Australian public has been deceived. But by whom? None of these persons had been appointed by the Queen of the United Kingdom under her Sign Manual. According to our State and Federal Constitutions, a law does not become a law until it receives ‘Royal Assent’ by someone who has been appointed under the Sign Manual. Obviously then, the Local Government Act (NSW) 1993 never received Royal Assent and so never became a law.
You beauty! I've got the bastards! But hang on. Why was a signature of the Queen there at all? Clearly she hadn’t made the appointments, or a record would be at the Archives, and the documents would have been signed at the 'Court of St James' bit.
So who did sign them?
A little more digging revealed that several decades ago, several Acts were passed both in the UK and in Australia. One of these Australian Acts – the Royal Styles and Title Act, 1973 – created some person called "The Queen of Australia".
Who the hell is she? I didn't vote for her. And in any case, the Constitution of Australia (and the Constitutions of the Australian States) only gives executive authority to the Queen of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. So this 'Queen of Australia' has no permission to do anything anyway.
Multiple queries later I was reluctantly informed by both UK and Aussie governments, that the Queen of the UK and the Queen of Australia are one and the same person; that they are 'indivisible', but the Queen of Australia acts on advice from "her Australian ministers".
Now I have two major problems with this, and this is where the bit about the Queen committing a crime comes in.
First, nowhere does this 'Queen of Australia' have permission to hold the Executive Authority necessary to make appointments and laws legally valid. She certainly was not given that permission by the Australian people, and she does NOT have that permission under the UK Act, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (UK) 1900.
Second, under certain UK legislation, she is only allowed to be known as the Queen of another country if the foreign policy of that country is controlled by the United Kingdom Parliament. Quite clearly Australian foreign policy is NOT controlled by the UK parliament so the Queen CANNOT be known as the Queen of Australia under requirements of her own laws.
Now I did find out that the Queen is immune from most laws, but I also found out that she is NOT immune from laws that relate to her. So has she committed an offence?
Has she allowed her law (The Constitution Act) to be enforced in another independent nation in contravention of international law?
Has she allowed herself to be known as ‘Queen of Australia’ in defiance of her own parliament’s Acts?
AND…
If the Australian Constitution requires that a valid Australian government consist of an Upper House, a Lower House, AND a Governor General appointed by the Queen of the United Kingdom under her Sign Manual, and the Governor General HAS NOT been appointed in that manner, then does Australia have a legally valid government?
If it does not have a legally valid government, then does it have a right to sit on the UN General Assembly and vote on issues before that assembly?
It goes back to a level playing field. If I have to obey the law, then so do they.
Just as an aside…
If no Australian laws have received Royal Assent as required by the Constitution, are any of these laws themselves legally valid?
Just as a besides the aside…
The Australian Constitution has NEVER been agreed to by the Australian people. What WAS agreed to prior to 1900 was sent to the UK for enactment, but the UK made over 60 alterations to the document and then legislated it. The altered document was never sent back to Australia to be voted on by the Australian people.
We demand that Iraq have its own Constitution freely adopted by the people of Iraq, but what about Australia?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT AUSTRALIA? By Michael Baker
How much do you know about Australia’s constitutional/political system: Past & Present? Try this simple TRUE / FALSE TEST.
1. The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900 is United Kingdom legislation. TRUE / FALSE?
2. Under the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900 sovereignty rests with the Queen and not with the Australian people. TRUE / FALSE?
3. That Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is appointed to Her position as Queen by the U.K. Parliament. TRUE /FALSE?
4. That clause 8 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900 describes the Commonwealth of Australia as a colony. TRUE / FALSE?
5. That under 'Australia’s' Constitution all Australian politicians, judges, lawyers and many others must swear allegiance to a Sovereignty that has not existed for more than 86 years. TRUE / FALSE?
6. That the ‘Australian’ Constitution – being a colonial Act of the U.K. Parliament – does not contain any elements of civil rights (such as; the right to private property, freedom of expression and freedom of movement, etc). TRUE / FALSE?
7. That under the ‘Australian’ Constitution the unelected Governor-General is commander in chief of the Australian military forces and that he holds this position because he is the Queen’s representative. TRUE/ FALSE?
8. That Australia is the only O.E.C.D. nation not to have a constitutionally enforceable Bill of Rights. TRUE / FALSE?
9. In the years 1973, 1983, 1985 and 1986 the Federal Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia consistently rejected Bills of Rights for the Australian people and consequently have denied Australian citizens even the fundamental human rights enshrined in the U.N.’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966; although the Australian government was a signatory to that Covenant. TRUE / FALSE?
10. That unenacted British law (common law) continues to be applied in Australian courts even though those to whom it is applied are denied all entitlements under British law (and this situation can apply to tourists to Australia). TRUE / FALSE?
If you answered 100% TRUE to each and every question, not only are you 100% correct, you are also not an Australian politician, judge, lawyer or academic. CONGRATULATIONS!!
(For an in depth analysis of Australian political philosophy and practice refer to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll).
Yes, that’s right – The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900 is legislation of the United Kingdom Parliament at Westminster, being enacted into law on the 9th of July, 1900, to come into effect on the 1st of January, 1901. Which of course, it did!
Under that Act – being an Act of the U.K. Parliament – sovereignty rests with their Queen. The Oath of Allegiance which still must be used by all of Australia’s politicians, judges, public servants and others, is contained in a Schedule to the Act and reads: "I, A.B. do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Her heirs and successors according to law. SO HELP ME GOD!" ( www.aph.gov.au/senate/general/constitution - Referenced under the link ‘The Schedule’).
Largely unrecognized by most people, because its not something that grabs the attention, the Monarchs of the United Kingdom have been Statutory Monarchies since the Act of Settlement, 1701 (U.K.). That is, the Kings and Queens of the U.K. have been appointed for more than 300 years by an Act of the Westminster Parliament. The oath of allegiance quoted above makes this crystal clear: "…Her heirs and successors according to law," and, what’s more, the law that decides Queen Elizabeth’s heirs and successors is not Australian law, its purely U.K. law and always was!
This hardly noticed fact has some interesting consequences. It means that the U.K. Parliament is the supreme authority in the U.K. – with or without a monarch, after all they appoint them! It means that currently a monarch of the U.K. cannot be a Roman Catholic and remain as the monarch.( see the Act of Settlement 1701). Essentially and literally, the U.K. Parliament is the supreme Authority within Australia’s political system and has been since Captain James Cook landed at Botany Bay on the east coast of the Australian continent in 1770. The chain of command runs like this: U.K. Parliament> the Monarch> the Australian Governor-General> the Federal Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia (from which is selected a government).
As an extreme example, but one that proves the point: if the U.K. decided to become a republic where would that leave the so-called independent nation of Australia? The Australian political, judicial and public service systems cannot operate without a Monarch who is appointed by the U.K. Parliament!!
Also and unrecognised by the Australian public at large, 'their' constitution works simply because it is no longer adhered to. Take, for example, the powers of the Queen’s representative, the Governor-General. This individual can act under the 'Australian' Constitution like a dictator! The fact that since 1901 they have not done so is beside the point. The dismissal of the popularly elected Labor Party federal government in 1975 by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr demonstrated to all who cared to see that in the late twentieth century the non-elected Queen’s man was still a force to be reckoned with in the free democracy of backward looking Australia.
Moreover (and here the situation becomes truly laughable) the 'Australian' Constitution – being trapped in a time-warp at the end of the 19th century - only recognises the Monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which is a political entity that has not existed since the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922!
So, what are the practical, down-to-earth consequences of all this?
First, that the Australian people have been denied their freedom, independence and sovereignty since at least 1945, when Australia became a member of United Nations. That the Australian people have been denied an effective say as to how they run their country and hence their own lives! Second, that the obligations contained in all of the international treaties to which Australia – through its governments - is a signatory, may be unenforceable. This could have very wide implications. Third, of debatable importance but of definite interest, will be how Australia’s politicians, judges and lawyers try to justify themselves. They can either admit that they knew the truth and therefore that they were parasites of the system, or they can admit their ignorance and thereby the fact that they were negligent by not understanding the very basis of the profession from which they have all happily gained so much. It will be an excruciation choice but one made all the more so for Australia’s highest Judges – the various Chief Justices – by the fact that important documents explaining the situation in detail were delivered to them by courier as long ago as 1999.
But surely Australia’s politicians know that the political system, which gives them so much, is flawed? Unfortunately, the majority do not! A politician needs no formal qualifications to attain high office and history shows that the average Australian politician is below average! Moreover, any new idea, much less any new critical idea based on history, law and exhaustive research, must begin as a minority opinion and there are no vote-winners in minority opinions. Why rock the boat, particularly when you have a first-class cabin (albeit on the Titanic)?
Some may wonder why the media has never 'picked up' on the story, but the answers are obvious. In Australia the media is interested in sensationalism and sport. Sensationalism sells and sport is one of Australia's few fields of successful endeavour. If the international media was at any time interested – and for the most part it was not – their investigative journalism skills vanished after any of their initial suspicions were refuted by the Australian government’s own Department of Foreign Affairs. One telephone call was all it took, for modern investigative journalism always takes the line of least persistence!
In short, the rest of the world was preoccupied. Moreover, the parasitic existence of the United Nations as a self-congratulatory organization for those involved in its self-perpetuating, busy-body activities can be all too clearly seen by anyone who wishes to take even a cursory look! That august body never raised a finger to even try to prevent one of its founding members from continuing to breach its own Charter (in particular Articles 2, 4, 6, 102 and 103, all of which guarantee the right of self-determination!).
The machinations of the United Kingdom's power-brokers remain largely motivated by a polished reticence to relinquish the trappings of empire. By applying their legislative power to lands no longer under the sovereign authority of the U.K. parliament and in jurisdictions no longer dependencies of the U.K., the very best that can be said is that Queen Elizabeth II has been misled and the laws of Her own kingdom subverted. This is the best that can be said.
The lack of any effective action by 'those in the know' to redress the problem – both in the U.K. and Australia – and despite numerous opportunities to do so, is proof of many things, not least being that corruption gives power and absolute corruption gives absolute power. The United Kingdom's courts failed to do the right thing – with Justice Lightman admitting that the Australian Prime Minister, John Winston Howard flew to London and put pressure on him to decide Mr. Fitzgibbon's case in the way he did!!
With the problem ready to replicate itself in Canada and New Zealand and the possibility and consequences of such action spreading, perhaps we should all wish the British people the best of their own luck! They may yet need it, because even if the U.K. government has a brilliant 'Spin-Doctor' the world can be a very lonely – if more democratic – place. Ignorance of the law is no defence; all the more so if you were instrumental in putting that law in place!
So why not visit Australia – a land lost in time? Simply 'put a shrimp on the barbie' and settle back and watch the nation struggle to reclaim its 19th century colonial past as it lurches into the 21st century backwards.
Never happy with its advance from being a child of Britain to a sovereign adult nation, Australia may yet declare its adolescent longings to the world: almost free, semi-independent, burdened by responsibility, awkwardly immature and not quite certain why it feels so proud of its 'hand-me-down' Constitution, borrowed legal system and second-hand politics.
Believe it, or not!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joosse's Case
Joosse's case is important because it was one of the first in a long line of matters where Australians placed the crucial issues of our history and the foundations of our future before the Australian and eventually, British and European court systems.
All of these courts sold out on every Australian, New Zealander and Canadian.
Joosse's case – transcript and judgement – lays out those issues.
Refer to:
'Joosse' High Court of Australia Transcript and Judgement
(PDM Source: http://www.basicfraud.com/main-0/# Posted with permission granted THANK YOU)
SYNOPSIS
We are involved with a growing number of Australian people – numbering in the many hundreds of thousands, at least - who have for some time become aware, concerned and disgusted about the corrupt behaviour of both the Australian and British Governments.
It involves the British Parliament, a succession of British monarchs (including Elizabeth II), other members of the British royal family, British and Australian politicians and the Australian, British and European Courts. As should soon be evident, news stories rarely get any bigger, have as many consequences, or as many people working against the truth.
This is without doubt the greatest perpetrated fraud within our modern times, which has continued for decades and definitely will be one of, if not, the largest news & media story ever uncovered. The documented facts on our website will show how the corrupt past and present British and Australian politicians, the judicial systems of two countries, as well as the European Court of Human Rights, have deliberately lied, misled and manipulated the Australian people for their own personal financial gain, greed and political appointments.
We assure you that every claim and accusation within this Website can be easily substantiated and verified with the official evidence, court documents and even Australian and British Government legal records, which we have uploaded for you to do your own research.
From 1919 every Australian Politician, Judge, Magistrate, Defence Force Personnel, Federal & State Police Officer, Sheriff, Local Mayor, etc., in other words the people in Authority, have ALL either knowingly or not, committed an ‘Act of Treason’ against the Australian People, by swearing allegiance and subscribing to an oath to serve Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland and therefore the government of a Power foreign to Australia.
Since 1919 the Monarchs of the United Kingdoms (and there have been two: the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland and of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) have allegedly appointed a Governor-General, who has in turn sworn into office the Federal Government of Australia. This Federal Government then had the rights and privileges to administer the laws and run the Commonwealth of Australia.
However, for reasons outlined in the documentation provided, these Monarchs have had NO legal basis to do so! Elizabeth II has NEVER been crowned the "Queen of Australia" and has absolutely NO legal authority within Australia!
You may then start to understand how our Australian Constitution, the appointment of our Australian Governments, and the establishment of various government departments have been for decades - illegal and invalid.
The whole Judicial System in Australia is not only invalid, it is also corrupt!!! Most Judges (especially those in the High, Federal and State Supreme Courts) are aware of this invalidity and know that their own appointments are totally unlawful. However, these same Judges have continued to preside and rule against hundreds of people, even when the invalidity of their appointments and position were actually questioned and also challenged in legal documents filed in their own courts and who were aware of this when making their rulings! Innocent people have been ordered to pay fines, had property re-possessed, been forced into bankruptcy or imprisoned by corrupt Judges who are more interested in protecting their own livelihoods, positions, power, superannuation and the status quo.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is also an organization with NO lawful authority. Yet people once again had their lives ruined to the point of suicide for being unable to pay their supposed taxes.
In October 2005 an action against the British Government was submitted and accepted by the European Court of Human Rights for “Human Rights Abuse”. The matter related to a legal action by Mr. David Claude Fitzgibbon, Australian Barrister-at-Law, for Human Rights Abuse against himself as someone resident in Australia. The British Government had 90 days to lodge their Defence, which was NOT entered. This was perhaps the FIRST time in the history of the Court that a Defence had not been lodged!
In October 2006, the Court mysteriously ruled that there was NO evidence of Human Rights offences having occurred within Australia. How can you possibly lose a court case when the British Government does not even submit a Defence, especially when there was an abundance of overwhelming evidence to substantiate the action filed by Mr Fitzgibbon?? What deals were struck in order to have the case quashed??? (Mr. Fitzgibbon was told personally by Justice Lightman, that Australian Prime Minister, John W. Howard actually put pressure on him to decide as he did).
Refer to: Mr Justice Lightman of the High Court Of Justice Chancery Division DAVID CLAUDE FITZGIBBON -v- HM ATTORNEY GENERAL
http://www.basicfraud.com/main-0/content/pdfs/Litigation/Mr%20Justice%20Lightman%20of%20the%20High%20Court%20Of%20Justice%20Chancery%20Division%20_%20DAVID%20CLAUDE%20FITZGIBBON%20-v-%20HM%20ATTORNEY%20GENERAL.pdf
"The continued usage of the Australian Constitution Act ( UK ) by the Australian Governments and the judiciary is a confidence trick of monstrous proportions played upon the Australian people with the intent of maintaining power. It remains an Act of the United Kingdom. After joining the League of Nations in 1919 Australia became a sovereign nation. It had no further legal power to use, alter or otherwise tamper with another nation’s legislation. Authority over the Australian Constitution Act lies not with the Australian government nor with the Australian people, it rests solely with the UK. Only they have the authority to repeal this legislation ..."
The late Professor G. Clements
Eminent UK QC and emeritus Professor in Law at Cambridge University
Most people would agree that Australia is recognised globally as an Independent & Sovereign Nation.
Well what does the word ‘Sovereignty’ mean?
According to ‘Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia’:
Sovereignty ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty ) is the exclusive right to have control over an area of governance, people, or oneself. In constitutional and international law, the concept also pertains to a government possessing full control over its own affairs within a territorial or geographical area or limit, and in certain context to various organs possessing legal jurisdiction in their own chief, rather than by mandate or under supervision.
The United Nations Resolution adopted by The General Assembly 50/172
( http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/50/ares50-172.htm ) Respect for the principles of national sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of States in their electoral processes, states:
1. Reiterates that, by virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, all peoples have the right, freely and without external interference, to determine their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and that every State has the duty to respect that right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter;
4. Reaffirms further that electoral assistance to Member States should be provided by the United Nations only at the request and with the consent of specific sovereign States, by virtue of resolutions adopted by the Security Council or the General Assembly in each case, in strict conformity with the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of States, or in special circumstances such as cases of decolonization, or in the context of regional or international peace processes;
7. Reaffirms that all countries have the obligation under the Charter to respect the right of others to self-determination and to determine freely their political status and pursue their economic, social and cultural development;
By all accounts it seems that Her Majesty Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and also termed “Queen of Australia” has no detrimental influence or significant consequence over the citizens of Australia. Or does she??
Well...the first thing we have to do is to establish whether the position of "Queen of Australia" does exist? Now our first issue is that Elizabeth II has never been crowned the "Queen of Australia". So what does that mean if we have a fictitious Monarch and what are the consequences?
A letter from the 'Commonwealth of Australia Attorney' General's Department dated 7th May, 2001 states that Mr Henke wanted to see a copy of the document issued by the government of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) empowering the Queen of Australia to use the Royal Sign Manual. (Refer: The Attorney-General's Department, the Commonwealth of Australia regarding 'the Queen of Australia' )
In the 2nd paragraph of that letter is the response which clearly states that there is NO SUCH DOCUMENT!!
Then there is the response from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom in London, to Mr William Bolton that the Queen has NO EXECUTIVE POWER within the Commonwealth of Australia. (Refer: Letter form Foreign & Commonwealth Office regarding the Queen )
By letter dated 18th October 2004, this time to Mr Sempf and once again under the Freedom Of Information Act, similar material was sought and this time the same response was received from the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet. (Refer: Lyall Sempf Response Letter from Australian Attorney General's-Department re Queen of Australia )
Yet clearly on Official Government documents such as the ‘Commissions of Governor-Generals or Governors’ both here and the UK, we can see that they contain the words QUEEN OF AUSTRALIA! [Click on the Tab 'Documents' and then refer to the link 'Vice Regal Appointments'].
Now, whenever you sign a legal document, be it an Affidavit, a Loan Contract from a Bank or your Will, you must always sign on the bottom of the page... it means that you agree with what is written above your signature.
Why then does the Queen sign her name on any legal Australian document at the top of the page? [Click on the Tab 'Documents' and then refer to the link 'Compare the Queen’s Signatures'].
Is it because she knows and understands the significant problems and ramifications with what is evident here in Australia and she does not want to be dragged through the European Court of Human Rights? She is fully aware and has known this for many years. [Click on the Tab 'Documents' and then under 'Correspondence' refer to some of the previous letters sent to her, such as:
W Levick Letter to Queen Elizabeth 4th January 2005]
So, if we have now established that there is NO Queen of Australia and that there is NO Royal Sign Manual, this then makes ALL the appointments of Governors-General of the Commonwealth of Australia NULL & VOID!!
So, we now have a Governor-General who has not been appointed legally, who unlawfully swears the Prime Minister and his Cabinet into Office, which now makes that Prime Minister’s appointment and his cabinet also NULL & VOID!!
So each and every one of the Government Departments whether Federal or State, the Local Councils, the Judicial System and the laws of the land, are now ALL totally NULL & VOID!!!
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Do you recognize that if the root is poisoned the fruit is poisoned?
Do you understand the difference between 'Authority' and 'Power'?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An Article by Peter Gillies
Question: Has the Queen of the United Kingdom committed a crime?
Question: Should the Australian Government be allowed to vote in the United Nations General Assembly?
At the outset I say that I am not a lawyer. I am an ordinary bloke who happens to believe in a level playing field. I believe that those that make the laws should be the first to obey them. This is not the case in Australia.
Some time ago I had a dispute with my local council. A senior planner told me that the council knew they were breaking the law, but that they did not care. “We’ve always done it” he said. They claim that all their authority derives from the Local Government Act 1993. So I set about finding what authority they actually did have.
What a can of worms I opened. Talk about lies and deceit.
First of all I went to our 'Australian' Constitution, which is not really ours. It is an Act of the UK Parliament and has never been part of Australian legislation. My first thought on finding this was, "How can this be right in an independent country?"
However, this aside, I did ascertain that what powers have not been conferred by the Constitution cannot be taken. That is hard legal fact. The Constitution allows for Federal and State governments but does not allow for a third level of government. A Constitutional inquiry (1985) also found this so it was decided to take it to a referendum of the people, which is the only way we can alter the Constitution. This referendum was held in 1988.
The question was asked, "Do you want to recognize Local Government?" All States came back with a resounding "NO" vote. Despite this denial by the people, all State Governments later passed a Local Government Act.
Not good so far, I thought, for a supposed democracy. But I looked further. For a government to be legally valid in Australia, under both State and Federal Constitutions, the Government must consist of three parts. It must have a lower and upper house, and it must have a Governor (State) or Governor General (Federal) who has been appointed by the Queen of the United Kingdom under her Royal Sign Manual.
OK. So now it’s getting really weird. First Australia, this independent country, has as its supreme law – the ‘Australian’ Constitution - a law of another nation. Then, for the governments of this independent nation to be legally valid they must have a representative appointed by the leader of another nation, appointed according to the laws of that other nation’s parliament. Surely this could not be right?
So I checked with the United Nations. They told me that one of the essential ingredients of the Charter of the United Nations is that the laws of one independent nation cannot be enforced within the territories of another independent nation.
So… if the Queen has done what her own UK Act says, and has appointed a State Governor, or a Federal Governor General in Australia, then is she guilty of committing an offence against international law?
But had she really appointed these people?
I started with the Local Government Act of New South Wales. The Governor who gave this Act Royal Assent was Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair. I emailed the House of Lords and asked, "Where are records of appointments made under the Sign Manual kept? They promptly replied that they were all kept in Folio C_ _ in the UK Archives and provided a link to that web site. I return emailed and thanked them but asked, "What about records of appointments of persons overseas?" They replied, "Records of ALL appointments under the Sign Manual are kept in this folio in the UK Archives."
The UK Archives web site quickly provided the subject folio, but it is not readily accessible to the general public. However, a list of accredited researchers was provided so I engaged one to locate and forward a copy of the documents of appointment of Peter Sinclair.
She eventually came back with the reply, "There is no record of any such appointment."
"How odd!" says I. So I placed a Freedom of Information request to the NSW Premier for a copy of the documents. They definitely did NOT want to give them to me.
While I was waiting for them, I went to the Newcastle University Law Library and found the UK laws relating to appointments made under the Royal Sign Manual. There are four essential ingredients necessary for an appointment to be valid. These are: -
1.The person MUST be a British Subject;
2.The appointment MUST be signed by the Queen of the United Kingdom;
3.It MUST be countersigned by a senior member of the UK parliament; and, most importantly,
4.It MUST bear the Great Seal of the United Kingdom.
OK. So these rules are set in concrete within UK legislation.
First, I found that Peter Sinclair is an Australian Citizen. He is NOT a British Subject.
Second, when the documents arrived, they did have a signature I presume was that of the Queen of the United Kingdom. However it was at the top right hand corner of the front page, BEFORE any other writing on the document. There was NO signature where it said, "Signed at Our Court of St James on….".
Third, there was NO signature of ANY member of the UK parliament.
Fourth, there was NO Great Seal of the United Kingdom.
AHA!
We now have NO record of the appointment at the UK Archives, and NO compliance with the various UK Acts that dictate what the Queen must do with regard to appointments under the Sign Manual. But what about other Governors, and what about Governors General? A similar check on several other ‘appointees’ at various dates revealed a similar situation.
Obviously the Australian public has been deceived. But by whom? None of these persons had been appointed by the Queen of the United Kingdom under her Sign Manual. According to our State and Federal Constitutions, a law does not become a law until it receives ‘Royal Assent’ by someone who has been appointed under the Sign Manual. Obviously then, the Local Government Act (NSW) 1993 never received Royal Assent and so never became a law.
You beauty! I've got the bastards! But hang on. Why was a signature of the Queen there at all? Clearly she hadn’t made the appointments, or a record would be at the Archives, and the documents would have been signed at the 'Court of St James' bit.
So who did sign them?
A little more digging revealed that several decades ago, several Acts were passed both in the UK and in Australia. One of these Australian Acts – the Royal Styles and Title Act, 1973 – created some person called "The Queen of Australia".
Who the hell is she? I didn't vote for her. And in any case, the Constitution of Australia (and the Constitutions of the Australian States) only gives executive authority to the Queen of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. So this 'Queen of Australia' has no permission to do anything anyway.
Multiple queries later I was reluctantly informed by both UK and Aussie governments, that the Queen of the UK and the Queen of Australia are one and the same person; that they are 'indivisible', but the Queen of Australia acts on advice from "her Australian ministers".
Now I have two major problems with this, and this is where the bit about the Queen committing a crime comes in.
First, nowhere does this 'Queen of Australia' have permission to hold the Executive Authority necessary to make appointments and laws legally valid. She certainly was not given that permission by the Australian people, and she does NOT have that permission under the UK Act, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (UK) 1900.
Second, under certain UK legislation, she is only allowed to be known as the Queen of another country if the foreign policy of that country is controlled by the United Kingdom Parliament. Quite clearly Australian foreign policy is NOT controlled by the UK parliament so the Queen CANNOT be known as the Queen of Australia under requirements of her own laws.
Now I did find out that the Queen is immune from most laws, but I also found out that she is NOT immune from laws that relate to her. So has she committed an offence?
Has she allowed her law (The Constitution Act) to be enforced in another independent nation in contravention of international law?
Has she allowed herself to be known as ‘Queen of Australia’ in defiance of her own parliament’s Acts?
AND…
If the Australian Constitution requires that a valid Australian government consist of an Upper House, a Lower House, AND a Governor General appointed by the Queen of the United Kingdom under her Sign Manual, and the Governor General HAS NOT been appointed in that manner, then does Australia have a legally valid government?
If it does not have a legally valid government, then does it have a right to sit on the UN General Assembly and vote on issues before that assembly?
It goes back to a level playing field. If I have to obey the law, then so do they.
Just as an aside…
If no Australian laws have received Royal Assent as required by the Constitution, are any of these laws themselves legally valid?
Just as a besides the aside…
The Australian Constitution has NEVER been agreed to by the Australian people. What WAS agreed to prior to 1900 was sent to the UK for enactment, but the UK made over 60 alterations to the document and then legislated it. The altered document was never sent back to Australia to be voted on by the Australian people.
We demand that Iraq have its own Constitution freely adopted by the people of Iraq, but what about Australia?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT AUSTRALIA? By Michael Baker
How much do you know about Australia’s constitutional/political system: Past & Present? Try this simple TRUE / FALSE TEST.
1. The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900 is United Kingdom legislation. TRUE / FALSE?
2. Under the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900 sovereignty rests with the Queen and not with the Australian people. TRUE / FALSE?
3. That Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is appointed to Her position as Queen by the U.K. Parliament. TRUE /FALSE?
4. That clause 8 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900 describes the Commonwealth of Australia as a colony. TRUE / FALSE?
5. That under 'Australia’s' Constitution all Australian politicians, judges, lawyers and many others must swear allegiance to a Sovereignty that has not existed for more than 86 years. TRUE / FALSE?
6. That the ‘Australian’ Constitution – being a colonial Act of the U.K. Parliament – does not contain any elements of civil rights (such as; the right to private property, freedom of expression and freedom of movement, etc). TRUE / FALSE?
7. That under the ‘Australian’ Constitution the unelected Governor-General is commander in chief of the Australian military forces and that he holds this position because he is the Queen’s representative. TRUE/ FALSE?
8. That Australia is the only O.E.C.D. nation not to have a constitutionally enforceable Bill of Rights. TRUE / FALSE?
9. In the years 1973, 1983, 1985 and 1986 the Federal Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia consistently rejected Bills of Rights for the Australian people and consequently have denied Australian citizens even the fundamental human rights enshrined in the U.N.’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966; although the Australian government was a signatory to that Covenant. TRUE / FALSE?
10. That unenacted British law (common law) continues to be applied in Australian courts even though those to whom it is applied are denied all entitlements under British law (and this situation can apply to tourists to Australia). TRUE / FALSE?
If you answered 100% TRUE to each and every question, not only are you 100% correct, you are also not an Australian politician, judge, lawyer or academic. CONGRATULATIONS!!
(For an in depth analysis of Australian political philosophy and practice refer to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll).
Yes, that’s right – The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900 is legislation of the United Kingdom Parliament at Westminster, being enacted into law on the 9th of July, 1900, to come into effect on the 1st of January, 1901. Which of course, it did!
Under that Act – being an Act of the U.K. Parliament – sovereignty rests with their Queen. The Oath of Allegiance which still must be used by all of Australia’s politicians, judges, public servants and others, is contained in a Schedule to the Act and reads: "I, A.B. do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Her heirs and successors according to law. SO HELP ME GOD!" ( www.aph.gov.au/senate/general/constitution - Referenced under the link ‘The Schedule’).
Largely unrecognized by most people, because its not something that grabs the attention, the Monarchs of the United Kingdom have been Statutory Monarchies since the Act of Settlement, 1701 (U.K.). That is, the Kings and Queens of the U.K. have been appointed for more than 300 years by an Act of the Westminster Parliament. The oath of allegiance quoted above makes this crystal clear: "…Her heirs and successors according to law," and, what’s more, the law that decides Queen Elizabeth’s heirs and successors is not Australian law, its purely U.K. law and always was!
This hardly noticed fact has some interesting consequences. It means that the U.K. Parliament is the supreme authority in the U.K. – with or without a monarch, after all they appoint them! It means that currently a monarch of the U.K. cannot be a Roman Catholic and remain as the monarch.( see the Act of Settlement 1701). Essentially and literally, the U.K. Parliament is the supreme Authority within Australia’s political system and has been since Captain James Cook landed at Botany Bay on the east coast of the Australian continent in 1770. The chain of command runs like this: U.K. Parliament> the Monarch> the Australian Governor-General> the Federal Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia (from which is selected a government).
As an extreme example, but one that proves the point: if the U.K. decided to become a republic where would that leave the so-called independent nation of Australia? The Australian political, judicial and public service systems cannot operate without a Monarch who is appointed by the U.K. Parliament!!
Also and unrecognised by the Australian public at large, 'their' constitution works simply because it is no longer adhered to. Take, for example, the powers of the Queen’s representative, the Governor-General. This individual can act under the 'Australian' Constitution like a dictator! The fact that since 1901 they have not done so is beside the point. The dismissal of the popularly elected Labor Party federal government in 1975 by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr demonstrated to all who cared to see that in the late twentieth century the non-elected Queen’s man was still a force to be reckoned with in the free democracy of backward looking Australia.
Moreover (and here the situation becomes truly laughable) the 'Australian' Constitution – being trapped in a time-warp at the end of the 19th century - only recognises the Monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which is a political entity that has not existed since the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922!
So, what are the practical, down-to-earth consequences of all this?
First, that the Australian people have been denied their freedom, independence and sovereignty since at least 1945, when Australia became a member of United Nations. That the Australian people have been denied an effective say as to how they run their country and hence their own lives! Second, that the obligations contained in all of the international treaties to which Australia – through its governments - is a signatory, may be unenforceable. This could have very wide implications. Third, of debatable importance but of definite interest, will be how Australia’s politicians, judges and lawyers try to justify themselves. They can either admit that they knew the truth and therefore that they were parasites of the system, or they can admit their ignorance and thereby the fact that they were negligent by not understanding the very basis of the profession from which they have all happily gained so much. It will be an excruciation choice but one made all the more so for Australia’s highest Judges – the various Chief Justices – by the fact that important documents explaining the situation in detail were delivered to them by courier as long ago as 1999.
But surely Australia’s politicians know that the political system, which gives them so much, is flawed? Unfortunately, the majority do not! A politician needs no formal qualifications to attain high office and history shows that the average Australian politician is below average! Moreover, any new idea, much less any new critical idea based on history, law and exhaustive research, must begin as a minority opinion and there are no vote-winners in minority opinions. Why rock the boat, particularly when you have a first-class cabin (albeit on the Titanic)?
Some may wonder why the media has never 'picked up' on the story, but the answers are obvious. In Australia the media is interested in sensationalism and sport. Sensationalism sells and sport is one of Australia's few fields of successful endeavour. If the international media was at any time interested – and for the most part it was not – their investigative journalism skills vanished after any of their initial suspicions were refuted by the Australian government’s own Department of Foreign Affairs. One telephone call was all it took, for modern investigative journalism always takes the line of least persistence!
In short, the rest of the world was preoccupied. Moreover, the parasitic existence of the United Nations as a self-congratulatory organization for those involved in its self-perpetuating, busy-body activities can be all too clearly seen by anyone who wishes to take even a cursory look! That august body never raised a finger to even try to prevent one of its founding members from continuing to breach its own Charter (in particular Articles 2, 4, 6, 102 and 103, all of which guarantee the right of self-determination!).
The machinations of the United Kingdom's power-brokers remain largely motivated by a polished reticence to relinquish the trappings of empire. By applying their legislative power to lands no longer under the sovereign authority of the U.K. parliament and in jurisdictions no longer dependencies of the U.K., the very best that can be said is that Queen Elizabeth II has been misled and the laws of Her own kingdom subverted. This is the best that can be said.
The lack of any effective action by 'those in the know' to redress the problem – both in the U.K. and Australia – and despite numerous opportunities to do so, is proof of many things, not least being that corruption gives power and absolute corruption gives absolute power. The United Kingdom's courts failed to do the right thing – with Justice Lightman admitting that the Australian Prime Minister, John Winston Howard flew to London and put pressure on him to decide Mr. Fitzgibbon's case in the way he did!!
With the problem ready to replicate itself in Canada and New Zealand and the possibility and consequences of such action spreading, perhaps we should all wish the British people the best of their own luck! They may yet need it, because even if the U.K. government has a brilliant 'Spin-Doctor' the world can be a very lonely – if more democratic – place. Ignorance of the law is no defence; all the more so if you were instrumental in putting that law in place!
So why not visit Australia – a land lost in time? Simply 'put a shrimp on the barbie' and settle back and watch the nation struggle to reclaim its 19th century colonial past as it lurches into the 21st century backwards.
Never happy with its advance from being a child of Britain to a sovereign adult nation, Australia may yet declare its adolescent longings to the world: almost free, semi-independent, burdened by responsibility, awkwardly immature and not quite certain why it feels so proud of its 'hand-me-down' Constitution, borrowed legal system and second-hand politics.
Believe it, or not!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joosse's Case
Joosse's case is important because it was one of the first in a long line of matters where Australians placed the crucial issues of our history and the foundations of our future before the Australian and eventually, British and European court systems.
All of these courts sold out on every Australian, New Zealander and Canadian.
Joosse's case – transcript and judgement – lays out those issues.
Refer to:
'Joosse' High Court of Australia Transcript and Judgement
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
