11 03 17 Westminster Hall DebateJohn Hemming MP has been ever so supportive ever since he attended our last meeting at the House of Commons on 25 January 2011.

As a member of the Backbench Business Committee he put a Westminster Hall debate on Articles 9 and 13 of the Bill of Rights 1688 on the agenda: the right of constituents to speak to their MP, without fear of reprisal. Video here and by clicking on the image. Transcript here.

Would you have thought that such a debate should be necessary? Well, he knows about “secret prisoners” and “hyper-injunctions” by “Courts of Protection” who practise “Contempt of Parliament”!…

Present were: Peter Bone MP (in the Chair), Paul Flynn MP, David Heath MP, William Cash MP, Helen Jones MP as well as

John Hemming MP:

We need to stand up for the citizen. … that it is completely wrong to be made to agree not to talk to one’s MP. I also think that that process of bullying is a contempt of Parliament and that action should be taken by Parliament to deal with it.

Richard Bacon MP:

When one thinks of secret courts, one thinks of unsavoury regimes such as those in Burma, Cuba, Hungary in the 1950s or Stalin’s Russia, but one does not think of the United Kingdom. How can a judge feel it appropriate to make an order making it unlawful-supposedly-to refer to the existence of proceedings?

and David Davis MP:

…our job is to be the defence of last recourse for the individual. We stand between the individual and the misdemeanours of the state or, indeed, the lynch-mob that was on the other extreme.

The debate has been very well described by Anna Raccoon on her blog, entitled Hyper-injunctions – The Secret Misery.

About these ads