Karen

Mr Mote was had up for 9 charges of false accounting to do with housing benefit. at Lewes Crown Court in November 2004 and referred to the Old Bailey. He was disowned by UKIP because he had not told anyone about this. He got off on Chapter IX of the Treaty of Rome because being banged up would prevent him attending the European 'parliament.' It is ironic that he calined immunity from punishment in England because he is a member of the European parliament but in around about way he has proved that we are no longer our own masters: adn his general views are much in line with ours. :roll:

__________________
Lady Di, Hitler and Communism are dead. Forward to Independence!

Sheila

He didn't "get off" - the case hasn't been heard yet. I don't know what Chapter IX of the Treaty of Rome is, or what relevance it has.

In July 2005 the EP agreed to waive his immunity and then he appealed this decision

http://tinyurl.com/yr34t8


Judgement on that appeal is still pending.
.

Tom Wilde

Sheila, thanks for that fascinating link. Any discussion of Mote's case is hampered by claims that the matter is sub judice, and we must therefore be very careful here. However, I can't see how there can be any problem in simply linking to official documents such as that one.

From the document you have posted, it is clear that the European Parliament voted in July 2005 to remove any parliamentary immunity from prosecution which Mote might have. This in theory cleared the way for him to be prosecuted in the UK should anyone in the UK have grounds to do so. Mote then appealed against this decision on 5 Sept 2005. The question is, why is a decision on that appeal still pending 17 months later? When is this matter scheduled to be discussed? I think this is a reasonable question to ask, and it does not touch on Mote's legal troubles in the UK, which are (as I've said) claimed to be sub judice.

I just did a quick search of the European Court of First Instance website and found an astonishing coincidence. As we all know, Mote recently joined a far right grouping in the European Parliament, called Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty. The chair of this group is a French National Front politician called Bruno Gollnisch. Gollnisch was recently prosecuted in France for Holocaust denial. Now here's the coincidence: like Mote, Gollnish also had any possible parliamentary immunity removed by a special decision of the European Parliament (in his case on 13 December 2005), and like Mote, Gollnisch too appealed against this decision! In Gollnisch's case, the appeal was rejected on 12 May 2006, which opened the way for his prosecution in France to go ahead. See this page:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/...en00270027.pdf

So the question is, given the striking similarity of the two appeals, why has Mote's appeal taken so much longer to decide than that of his boss? Gollnish's appeal only took 6 months to be rejected. Mote appealed 17 months ago - when will that appeal be decided?

It is important to stress that we aren't discussing Mote's case - we are simply discussing the principle of whether or not MEPs have parliamentary immunity from prosecution, and also discussing the speed of justice in European courts.

Bluemerle

Don't forget that all MEPs are immune from prosecution. :shock:

Karen

Chapter IX of the 1960 treaty says that MEPs must not be prevented from attending sessions in Strasbourg. Why no progress has been made is indeed interesting.

__________________
Lady Di, Hitler and Communism are dead. Forward to Independence!

chikrodah

I'm sure the courts could download a copy of the Plenary Sessions diary and work around that :twisted:

Sheila

1960 Treaty? The Treaty of Rome is dated 1957. And it doesn't have a Chapter IX.

What it does have is Protocol No. 2, Chapter III, Article 8, paragraph 1 of which says

and Article 9 of which says

see the whole protocol at
http://europa.eu/abc/treaties/archives/en/entr13b.htm


However, under UK electoral law, if someone were to be imprisoned for a criminal offence, he or she would be disqualified and would no longer be an MEP, so that imprisonment wouldn't breach Article 8.

And Article 9 specifically refers to opinions expressed or votes cast in the performance of their duties. Which clearly doesn't apply in the case we are probably not supposed to be discussing!

And none of the above prevents the EP from
which is what the EP did in this case.
.

Tom Wilde

Any idea why, or when judgement is due on the appeal?

As I pointed out earlier, a similar appeal for Bruno Gollnisch took only 6 months to be rejected, whereas I believe poor Mr Mote has so far been waiting 17 months so far for a decision on his appeal. This seems odd.

Adrian Davies

Hm, one appealed against the removal of immunity for alleged offences of dishonesty committed before his election, the other for alleged offences against repressive laws interfering with freedom of speech about events that happened (or not, as the case may be) more than sixty years ago . . . Can't see much similarity there. Strange how the case against the alleged blasphemer against orthodox historiography is expedited, whereas the case against the alleged benefit fraudster drags on.

Tom Wilde

I can see I'm going to have to pick my words even more carefully! When I said "the striking similarity of the two appeals", I wasn't referring in any way to the nature of the cases against the two men in their respective home countries. Plainly those cases couldn't be more different. I simply meant that both MEPs had (separately) been the subject of special votes by the European Parliament to remove any parliamentary immunity the individual MEP might (or might not) have, and that both MEPs had (separately) then appealed to the European Court of First Instance asking it to overturn the European Parliament vote.