A NEW SITE as a growing resource for [McKenzie] Friends and [Public Interest] Advocates

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We love Friends!

We love Friends! (Photo credit: eilonwy77)

The road from ‘victim’ to starfighter, campaigner, McKenzie Friend and Advocate, Litigant’s Friend or Public Interest Advocate is paved with LOTS of shocks as ‘waking up therapy’ or ‘truth emergency’ as Global Research calls in this recent article.

This website is an admirable ‘fledgling resource’ – with the following ‘take away messages’:

  1. we need Friends to ‘process’ the shocks we’re experiencing, as we’re waking up to the fact that the authorities are NOT here to help
  2. we need to know what is our REMEDY, i.e. which legal form needs to be sent to which authority; the library of forms is here
  3. the most effective process is a Judicial Review in your local County Court, for £25.
  4. In practice, we need
    • C100 to apply for CONTACT with our kids
    • N244 to apply for ANY kind of ORDER
    • an Appellant’s Notice, if we want to APPEAL an Order
    • N461 to apply for a Judicial Review.

This means we now have to learn to help each other writing Judicial Reviews. It implies using LEGAL ARGUMENTS and often referring to ‘precedent cases’.

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SECOND VIDEO of House of Commons meeting with Austin Mitchell MP

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It’s so good to be able to capture on video what happened in meetings. We each remember different things and when looking back, we’ll think of yet something else.

Here’s the morning meeting with John Hemming MP on 15th January 2013:

and here’s the afternoon meeting with Austin Mitchell MP:

McKENZIE SUCCESS: Permission to Appeal an Adoption Order GRANTED

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It was only thanks to a major team effort that this could happen today:

And then:

  1. travelling to the mother whose two daughters were taken by… I shall refrain from naming and shaming the Council for now; they know who they are…
  2. submitting an Application for Contact (form C100 – obtainable from your local court or online here!!!)
  3. digging into her life story and building trust – despite all her bad experiences
  4. attending a ‘Directions’ hearing in the Royal Courts of Justice
  5. reminding Social Services to comply to the order made
  6. learning to use Google docs to co-author a ‘skeleton argument and amended grounds for appeal’ and submit it in time
  7. getting ready for a hearing about the Permission to Appeal
  8. visiting Social Services who had not complied to the Order
  9. producing a ‘Position Statement’ – just in case – for ‘the other side’ were going to produce something…
  10. submitting the McKenzie CV and asking for ‘right of audience’ which was granted. [Since it's up to the discretion of the judge, one never knows...]

The mother came out crying with, I presume a mix of joy and relief, for “she got it”: the permission to appeal. The Appeal will be heard in nearly 3 months: in May 2013.

The key is the precedent case made by Judge Munby, the current President of the Family Division who had said [para 44, iv]

to take a baby at birth is a dreadful thing: dreadful for the father, the mother and the baby…

It refers to this case in the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which emphasised at paras [116], [131], [133],

that the removal of a child from his mother at or shortly after birth is a “draconian” and “extremely harsh” measure, requiring “exceptional justification” and “extraordinarily compelling reasons” under Article 8.

PS. Our meeting with Austin Mitchell MP in the afternoon is on this blog post.

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McKenzie Friends @ the House of Commons – as Public Interest Advocates

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McKenzies for FairnessPress and Multi Media Release

Mind the Gaps – between Online and Mainstream Media, Government and Public

Tuesday, 15th January, House of Commons, Committee Rooms,
11am – 1pm and 2pm – 4pm

Globalisation strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski[1] recently identified accelerating social change driven by “instant mass communications”, which have been cumulatively stimulating “a universal awakening of mass political consciousness[2].” In the UK, the consequent gulfs between public opinion and government, and between online and mainstream media are widening precariously: poll after poll details public trust plummeting[3][4][5] all round while many political activist websites have grown as busy as mainstream e-commerce and media outlets.

As public interest advocates, the Association of McKenzie Friends seeks to acknowledge and address these gaps as a matter of urgency. In the wake of debilitating systemic failures such as Hillsborough, Savile and Leveson, we will be presenting an evidence-based analysis of “Seven Deadly Syndromes” that infect public life. Panel members are:

Continue reading →

Riding the Hillsborough and Savile Tide or Seven Deadly Syndromes and Seven Media Cover-Ups

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It is not easy to make sense out of shocking stories that question everything we are made to believe. But thinking our own thoughts and following our own feelings is part of learning to be alive as a free-standing individual.

In a ‘summit’ meeting of McKenzie Friends, we tried to make sense together and collated the following seven deadly syndromes and seven media cover-ups.

Here is an Executive Summary  and here are the seven syndromes:

1. Secret Societies

The Private Lives of Public People

2. Mainstream Media Cover-Ups

Strategies for Gagging, Controlling and generally Dumbing Down

3. Crimes against Children and Families

Paedophilia, Child Snatching and Premature Sexualisation

4. Reporting Fraud and White Collar CrimesReporting of Fraud

Public Services as Perpetrators and Non-InvestigatorsEnforcement of Bank of England Act 1694

5. The Illegality of Usury and Wars

How Successive Governments Ignore National Law and International Treaties

6. Policing

Who Guards the Guards?

7. CONTEST

How the Counter-Terrorism Strategies Drive Miscarriages of Justice

The full document is here. Continue reading →

How to Assist Litigants in Person – our Strategy Meeting on 6th Sept 2012

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Today we came together as a group to strategise where we want to go. Before we decide to take cases on behalf of victims of white collar crimes They tend to have to act as Litigants in Person due to lack of funds. We need to assess it according to certain ground rules:

  1. we need to decide whether the person is fit enough to be in court or requires some counselling, before representing themselves as a Litigant in Person
  2. we need to produce a chronology of the case as a summary for trained legal professionals
  3. we need to decide on the desired outcome of the legal remedies and procedures available. Continue reading →

Legal Maxim “He who fails to assert his rights has none.”

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CASE LAW

HM Prison Armley & Anor [2011] EWHC 2269 (Admin) (26 August 2011)
URL: ttp://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2269.html
Cite as: [2011] EWHC 2269 (Admin)

1. … I was also asked to consider (by his McKenzie friend, Mr Jarvis) whether or not it was open to me to hear an application by the Claimant to purge his contempt.

3. … I was also addressed by his McKenzie friend, Mr Jarvis.

4. At the hearing on 25 August 2011 I was addressed at length by the Claimant. Mr Jarvis also made representations on his behalf.

7. The Claimant was not represented by a lawyer …

8. … Mr Jarvis made short submissions in support of those contentions. …

Continue reading →