Thursday 22 December 2011

The Death of David Kelly - Mr Justice Nicol refuses leave for Judicial Review of Attorney General's decision

The BBC and other media are reporting that on Monday 19th December 2011, at the High Court in London, Mr "Justice" Nicol refused Mr. David Halpin leave to proceed to judicial review of Dominic Grieve's decision which was announced on 9th June 2011. See for example Dr David Kelly inquest ruling challenge fails.

The BBC report states,

The court said there was "no impropriety" or procedural flaw in the way Mr Grieve had considered the evidence and concluded a new inquest was unnecessary.
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which is an interesting position for Mr. Justice Nicol to adopt.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of the shameful nature of Dominic Grieve's decision in my view. See, for example, The Death of David Kelly - A shameful and appalling cover-up by a dishonest Attorney General.

According to the Matrix Law website David Halpin's case was deemed to be "unarguable" (Matrix Chambers):

19/12/11 High Court says that challenge to Attorney General's decision on Kelly Inquest is "unarguable"Mr Justice Nicol rejected a challenge by a retired surgeon who sought to challenge the Attorney General's decision not to apply for a new inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly. Following a day's hearing, Mr Justice Nicol said that the claim against the Attorney General was "unarguable" and ordered the Claimant to pay the Attorney's costs. Jonathan Glasson acted for the Attorney General, led by Jonathan Swift QC, First Treasury Counsel. For more details, please see the BBC website.


Currently, I cannot locate any written judgement by Mr. Justice Nicol therefore cannot yet fairly assess whether or not Mr. Justice Nicol's contention of the case being "unarguable" is simply a reflection of his being a "safe pair of establishment hands".

Given that the establishment appointed Lord Hutton as a "safe pair of hands" with a track record of covering up murder by state agents (see, for example, The Death of David Kelly - Lord Hutton has "previous" in concealing murder which would be embarassing to the State ) it would not surprise me at all if Mr. "Justice" Nicol replaced Mr. Justice Parker for similar reasons.

1 comment:

  1. Andrew and co,
    It has been my contention for some time that the justice we all seek is not going to emerge from a Government Inquiry or the findings of a High Court Judge who values his career.
    Judge Nicol was far too young to see his career come to an abrupt end. Which is just what would have happened if he had found in favour of David Halpin and put the Attorney General through the mincer.
    It reminds me of that comment in the comedy 'Yes Minister' where they needed a judge to go along with the government and secure a difficult prosecution of a person responsible for a rather embarrassing leak. The suggestion was that the Minister should find a Judge that could be leaned on.....the reply was 'No, we need to find a Judge that doesn't need to be leaned on'!
    We need to start leaning on people and we need to start naming names.
    Frank

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