Immediate Support Required - Gary McKinnon Law Lords Hearing As a basic background to this case please see the following Exopolitics UK site resources: Fair trial for Gary Video and audio on case In addition the Black Vault has a regularly updated Wiki entry Gary's case is due to be heard by the House of Lords on 16th June 2008. The complexities of the British judicial and parliamentary systems needs some clarification. After British MPs voted to agree to the extradition and his failure of Appeal at the British High Court he is currently appealing to the House of Lords on a number of technicalities related to the extradition. We need people to write/email/fax those involved in the decision to re-publicise Gary's case and its links to an unfair and draconian extradition system.

Note -  14th June: You can, as I understand, still contact the Law Lords' office AFTER the 16th as they will take some weeks to issue a decision. Therefore communications may still help. There are a couple of template type letters on this site - one is here. 

Law Lords are select members of House of Lords:

Please Note - Law Lords are members of the House of Lords.

"There are 12 Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (or law lords). They are equivalent to supreme court judges in other countries and when the new UK Supreme Court comes into operation in 2008 the law lords will become the first justices of the Supreme Court. Law lords are appointed by The Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister, usually from the ranks of the senior appeal court judges in each part of the UK." - more info available from this helpful source

Although the Law Lords have the right to act as "political" Lords, in practice they have a purely judicial role. The House of Lords is the highest court of appeal available within the England and Wales.

The list of current Law Lords as at October 2007 is as follows [in order of seniority]: 

Bingham of Cornhill, L. (Senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary)
Hoffmann, L. (Second senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary)
Hope of Craighead, L.
Saville of Newdigate, L.
Scott of Foscote, L.
Rodger of Earlsferry, L.
Walker of Gestingthorpe, L.
Hale of Richmond, B.
Carswell, L.
Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, L.
Mance, L.
Neuberger of Abbotsbury, L.

This table below has been extracted from Judicial Sittings Diaries and shows the subject matter under scrutiny. 

Contacting Law Lords and/or Representatives:

Please send brief letters or request your call messages be noted and passed on to any of those listed above. Please be polite and straight forward - abusive or angry comments may hurt the case more than help it.

Enquiries should be directed to:

The Judicial Office, House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW

telephone 020-7219 3111

facsimile 020-7219 2476

If you need either a list of points or a template letter, please contact us and we'll forward a copy of the one we've used to date. 

Updated - 6th June 

The revised short-list is as follows: 

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers
Lord Scott of Foscote
Baroness Hale of Richmond
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury

In addition to what we wrote in the article above, Gary's solicitors and supporters have provided further information on some of the Law Lords involved and the process itself.

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers is Master of the Rolls, i.e. the third most senior Judge in England and Wales just below the Lord Chancellor (a politician) and the Lord Chief Justice.

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood currently was until recently as the Intelligence Services Commissioner, who is supposed to investigate the activities of the UK intelligence agencies MI5 the Security Service, MI6 the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ (the UK partner of the US National Security Agency) and the UK military, with regard to electronic snooping and interception of communications or other forms of surveillance, covert human intelligence sources etc.
Given that his Annual Reports to Parliament have never criticised any of these agencies, dies that mean that he is likely to be inherently sympathetic to the US Government ?

Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury also recently sat on the European Arrest Warrant appeal, which overturned a writ of Habeas Corpus, and allowed the Extradition of Farid Hilali to Spain, which may prove to be of relevance in whether they decide to trust any promises or assurances given by the US Government.

Hopefully these particular law Lords will be reminded of the fact that the Spanish authorities ignored and flouted their Judgment, once they had their prisoner in their power - Judgments - In re Hilali (Respondent) (application for a writ of Habeas Corpus). The UK Law Lords had ruled that Hilali should only be extradited to face the more serious of the two charges against him in Spain, and not the lesser, probably easier to prove one. All the evidence that case is also purely electronic and international, as with Gary McKinnon's case.

The Spanish authorities have utterly ignored this UK Law Lords judgment and have perversely done exactly the opposite - charged Hilali with the lesser offence, and not the one which the UK Law Lords permitted him to be extradited on.

Baroness Hale's hopes for "... a spirit of mutual trust and respect and not in a spirit of suspicion and disrespect" seem to have been dashed. Once bitten, twice shy ?

If the Judgments of the Law Lords are not even respected and obeyed by fellow European Union countries like Spain, why should they be respected or obeyed by the United States government ?

It is usually several weeks or months after a hearing, before the Law Lords actually publish a Judgment in this, or any other, case before them.

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