BN66 - the road to Judicial Review

[BrilloPad]

I'm going to try and get there for an hour or so on the Tuesday. I only work just across the river so no excuse not to.

Can you just walk in ?

yes. worth getting the court number the night before.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Number attending fo far - 19

http://forums.contractoruk.com/accou...al-review.html

Now up to 32, and still waiting for confirmation from a few more.

[Toocan]

Our day in Court approaches

We’ve waited a long time for our day in Court, and on Tuesday that day arrives.

It’s not the case that any of us were expecting – we could never have foreseen that HMRC/HMT would enact retrospective legislation in the way that they have. They gave us no warning, of any kind, that such a thing would be done. We do not fall into the “categories” where retrospective legislation may be used. They did not even follow their own rules for the introduction of retrospective legislation.

I don’t think we expected HMRC to behave in the evasive and dishonest manner that they have. There was a time when civil servants behaved in an honourable manner and indeed the civil servants of yesteryear must turn their heads in shame when they see how their current counterparts are behaving.

A read over today’s broadsheets appears to show that the entire government machine has degenerated to thugary http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6991086.ece and where we once welcomed productive people to this country, now we scare them away http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article6991066.ece

We, the people on this forum, now know an awful lot of the details of this case. Details that the causal observer may not be privy to. On Tuesday, many of those details will come out in open Court. The evidence that HMRC have put forward so far is weak. Despite that, they will put a lot of effort and money (our money) into this case because we are not actually the targets of this action:

HMRC wants the right to tax retrospectively and that is what this case is really about.

In some ways, this case reflects what the government have been doing over the past decade. Rather than drafting specific laws, they enact woolly laws in the hope of trapping more people. The Padmore legislation was specific which is why they could not apply it to us – it just did not fit. Look at how they drafted the anti-terrorism laws (think of Tony Blair’s heckler being arrested under anti-terrorism legislation). Or s660 which they tried to make fit a situation that HMRC had approved of – for decades. Or the extreme pornography law with which they brought some poor sole to the door of the Court because he had a comedy cartoon in his Inbox. How about the mobile phone while driving law – I agree no one should be talking on a mobile phone while driving – but did you know that if you’re stuck in a traffic jam – not moving – and you phone someone then that also breaks the law? If you’re stuck due to a an accident you can’t even call the emergency services without breaking the law. In a similar vein, if you get into a car while drunk (eg perhaps into the back seat), even with no intention of driving then you can and will be prosecuted for drunk driving!

It simply cannot be right to criminalise honest people in this way. If there is any justice, then we will win the JR this week.

Best of British to us all…

[DonkeyRhubarb]

We’ve waited a long time for our day in Court, and tomorrow that day arrives.

Just so there's no confusion, the proceedings start on Tuesday.

[Toocan]

Just so there's no confusion, the proceedings start on Tuesday.

Opps...thanks for that "Clarification"!

[Lobscouse]

As a long-time lurker, I just want to thank DR and everyone else for keeping this moving and making so much progress.

Good luck to everyone attending on Tuesday.

[TheGaffer]

Now up to 32, and still waiting for confirmation from a few more.

Will be there at least one day (hopefully Tuesday). Thanks for all your efforts DR.

[dvrjw]

Been avidly watching events from afar.

Thanks to the organisers and contributors of this forum for keeping us informed and for giving us hope.

Good luck this week

[GottaBeOptimistic]

event line ?

Hiya all and good luck for this week !!

Could somebody confirm if the following timeline is roughly correct ?

1. Tues/Weds/Thur - court hearing.
2. 6 week(ish) delay until a decision is given.
3. MP / HMRC (losing party) likely then to appeal against the decision.
4. Potential 6 months period wait until the appeal is heard.
5. Further n weeks delay for appeal judgement.

In the event that we lose the JR, MP still have other avenues to pursue but no clear timeline is known on these.

+++++++

Hopefully this week will provide a strong insight to how strong our case is in the courts but it seems that we really won't know for sure for many more months to come ?

Base on what's been made available on this forum, I'm feeling confident that we will get the decision but it does still feel that this won't be set in concrete until late 2010. Any thoughts ?

[GottaBeOptimistic]

Radio 5 news last week

There was a report on raido 5 last week that stuck me as being similar to our story. The government are planning to apply retrospective legislation for rates at ports which endangers 150,000 jobs. Did anyone hear this broadcast ?


This link shows more :
http://www.regen.net/news/ByDiscipli...ax-plan-again/