How do you run a military court over Zoom? With 28 bullet points and a ceremonial laptop flunkey, of course! A bizarre new court protocol for sentencing military criminals over Zoom includes instructions for the ceremonial carrying of a laptop and webcam in and out of the courtroom. In no fewer than 28 bullet points the UK's Military Court Service, (MCS) which deals with officers, soldiers, sailors and airmen accused of crimes, has …
Even with the emergency powers currently in place BoJo has no ability to do anything other than what has been allowed by parliament and he has no control over Parliament, He only has the majority of MPs currently agreeing to let him make daily decisions and propose laws (propose, not enact).
Only a year ago it was perfectly clear to see that actual power lies with Parliament, laws were passed that the PM (T.M. & B.J.) disagreed with but could do nothing to prevent, the supreme court annulled a decision made by BoJo because they deemed it to be beyond the acceptable level of leeway used historically.
If you want an example of UK martial law read about Oliver Cromwells tenure, then ask yourself just how plausible anything remotely like that has of being put in motion today in the UK.
"Only a year ago it was perfectly clear to see that actual power lies with Parliament, laws were passed that the PM (T.M. & B.J.) disagreed with but could do nothing to prevent, the supreme court annulled a decision made by BoJo because they deemed it to be beyond the acceptable level of leeway used historically."
Likewise, it seems a certain Donald J. Trump is only just now realising that his own Supreme Court will enforce the law as written, not as Mr Trump thinks it ought to be, even after he "rebalanced" it in his favour.
Gareth hasn't read the document properly. There is no "ceremonial" removal of any laptop, it just goes along with its user - it's the court administrator's laptop that is removed during deliberation, not the judge's. Fairly obviously, a private deliberation shouldn't have somebody else's laptop there!
I interpreted it as the judge panel no longer being 'in' the actual ongoing meeting* after the administrator left (effectively taking the courtroom), and that texting was the easiest way of bringing everyone back. Assumption being the administrator may not have moved just into the next room.
* The meeting being a virtual courtroom, I'd think the object of this is to replicate the existing courtroom process exactly, because what constitutes a courtroom in session has many centuries of applied law & precedent, if anything is changed ad-hoc the implications could be profound.
Yes, this exactly.
Instead of coming up with a complex and expensive software solution that will be cancelled in 20 years time with 10 billion spent on it they've just stuck a laptop running with Zoom on where somebody would normally be physically sitting in the court room and then carried on precisely as normal.
Where somebody should walk around the courtroom and introduce themselves they've instead had their laptop carried around to do the job.
Where somebody should leave the room, their laptops are carried out of the room. When an usher ought to go and get the person from the room, they've replaced that with a telephone call saying "connect again, we're going to carry your laptop back in".
To be honest, as a "let's get it done" solution i'd give them 10/10 and suggest that it be rolled out to the magistrates court which is currently only hearing desperately important cases. In person.
I think the fact they are using Zoom, rather than an in-house (or even in-Government) developed system speaks volumes.
Are we suggesting there is no secure system for video conferencing anywhere in the military? Surely the National Cyber Security Centre / 77th Brigade should have its development as part of its remit to modernise Military & Security communications?
I think the fact they are using Zoom, rather than an in-house (or even in-Government) developed system speaks volumes.
Not really. The military requirement has generally been for very, very secure voice traffic via radio and satellite. That requirement has been met and solutions they needed delivered.
I would lay good money on the fact that at the beginning of this year almost everybody would have turned around and said "why would we want that?" to mass scale video conferencing because there was no real need anywhere before a major pandemic turned up.
Faced with a sudden unanticipated need they've just picked up a usable off the shelf system which works now, rather than developing something from scratch which might be ready in a few years time. I don't see the problem personally, i'm sure that a proprietary solution will be developed in a few years time at an eye watering cost and deployed after the point that anybody wants to use it.
My one and only experience of a court martial was that it was a strange mixture of formal and informal. After the morning's session the court adjourned for lunch - not quite an officer's mess AFAICR* - but somewhat formal and I was invited along. I, as a witness, found myself sitting next to the judge. That never happened in a civil court.
* Which isn't very much given the events of the previous evening. Top tip: be very careful when drinking with army sergeants. Especially MPs. And very especially SIB, the military equivalent of CID.
The army's not been the same since Wellington's time. When the ration was a third of a pint of rum per day! That put hairs on their chests... In unfortunate circumstances, where supplies were difficult, the substitution was made for a rather poor pint of local wine - barely enough to get by, I'm sure you'll agree.
But in their free time, I believe the army still try to maintain the traditions.
Also The Navy is indirectly responsible for the creation of the Italian Mafia. To supply the Navy with all the citrus fruits to prevent rickets, Italians set up massive profitable citrus (orange?) orchards.
These profits led to the "lovely orchard you've got that, it'd be a shame...." business model.
Sort of... The Mafia was down to the infernal stupidity of the Whig [ radical but Establishment: his pa was the Whig prime minister, the Duke of Portland ] Lord William Bentinck, utterly determined to castrate Sicily's monarchy and replace it as in England with a fake monarchy and a 'constitution' * with the local aristocracy ruling in reality; just like England. **
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After that the barons crushed the peasantry and hired 'security': these latter became Mafia groupings, and crushed the peasantry on their own behalf. The lack of strong regal power meant neither the barons nor the mafia could be crushed. Then the mafioso flourished under the new liberal Italian regime kicked off by Garibaldi --- a strong contender for biggest bore of the 19th century himself --- through the Democrazia Cristiana to within living memory. ***
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[ In sharp contrasdiction to the neo-Jacobite Lord Nelson, who knew what to do with Neapolitan-Sicilian rebels. ]
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* 19th century Britons talking about the British Constitution were just as boring and inane as modern Americans boasting about their wretched thing.
* * When he ruled Sicily once he exiled the Queen: he then found the barons insufferable and withdrew his concessions. Shades of idiot Cromwell...
*** If you are older than the century.
@Allan George Dyer
Not one of those biscuits has passed my lips since the day (at the age of 6) my uncle told me they were squashed fly biscuits. My father not only agreed with him but said "look, bite the end off, and you can even see the little legs". They they then continued to regale me with stories of Australian Aborigines eating witchety grubs (a very large underground caterpillar which you have to swallow whole) and Africans eating grasshoppers. It only took a week or so to realise it was a ploy to make sure the grown-ups had more biscuits for themselves but the damage was done, and I have never had the courage to taste one again.
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