Getting Irate So That You Don't Have To

Getting Irate So That You Don't Have To

Tuesday, 11 May 2010

Meanwhile....

...one of the many outrageous legacies of 13 years of socialism is played out by the British legal system.

Garry Mann, arrested, tried and convicted within 48 hours of being found by Portuguese police in the vicinity of a riot by fans during the Euro 2004 football tournament, has had his extradition set.

The courts got this right the first time. Initially deported following a trial in which he was denied proper access to a lawyer and could not understand fully the proceedings, Mann won the first legal round when a British court ruled that he had been denied a fair trial.

Then in 2009 Mann was arrested on a European Arrest Warrant, alleging he was wanted in Portugal to serve a 2 year prison sentence - a sentence he'd been told five years previously by Portuguese authorities he wouldn't have to serve. Earlier this year the High Court decided it had no choice but to grant the extradition request. However, Lord Justice Moses stated in its judgment that he could not “leave this application without remarking upon the inability of this court to rectify what appears to be a serious injustice to Mr Mann”.

At the root of this is another example of legislation supposedly introduced to fight terrorism being used by draconian authorities to mop up relative small fry without the tiresome need to follow what most of us would consider due legal process. Mark my words: Garry Mann will not be the last thoroughly undeserved victim of Europe's fast- track extradition system.

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