Lord Philip

[Ed ~ There can be nothing more frustrating or despairing than hitting your head against the brick wall of legal obscurantism, knowing full well you are 100 per cent right.  Knowing too, full well, that the very characters who uncompromisingly circumvent your promotion of that right also know you are 100 per cent right, but can not openly acknowledge it.  This was what I was up against.  Some people may think I went about it the wrong way, that they can't brook the terminology I used in my letters to operatives in the legal warehouses.  They are entitled to that opinion, but I would do everything exactly the same way again - driven by my conscience as I was - if I had to confront the same legal misfits again, under the same circumstances.  This is one of the letters Lord Philip referred to in his "Opinion" as being "couched in abusive, offensive and defamatory terms".LINK   If the characters mentioned were not entitled to be defamed, why did they not use the very tools of their trade, litigation, to sue me?  The answer is patently obvious!
Read the letter below.  Incidentally, my full name and address were always included on both the envelopes and in all the letters.]

 

8 October 2004

Lords (Sandy) Filibuster Philip & (Big AL) Jettison Johnston
(The latter being a member of the Exclusive, Secretive & Highly-Suspect Masonic "Speculative Society"LINK)
In Cahoots with Lords Coco Boyd & Slyboots (Gogs) Coutts QC
Contemptible Thieves & Liars - Looting Limbs of Satan
Fraudulent Hounds from Hell - Lawless Spawns of the Devil
"Legal" Extremists & Accessories to Extortion
Cast into Slavery by Political & Criminal Corruption
Associates of Low-Life MAGGOTS in the CRIME PROTECTION SYNDICATE
M A S O N V I L L E
G A N G S T E R D O M
M O B S T E R M A N O R
Cash-and-Carry Supreme K A N G A R O O Courts
Skulduggery Court House Framing Gallery
11 Parliament Square
EDINBURGH EH1 1RQ
Scotland
E.C.

Nemo habetur agere dolose qui jure suo utitor: No one is held to act wrongfully (or fraudulently) who acts in the exercise of his rights (Fraser, ii. 1009).

Dear Sandy, Big Al & Gogs

The Scottish Legal System's Crime Protection Syndicate -v- William Burns
In Re
Stage-managed, Invalid Sequestration

Given that you, Lord Sandy Philip, have chosen to ignore all the relevant facts surrounding the above cause, despite stating at the beginning of paragraph 16 on page 10 of your Opinion that "Section 40(2) [of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985] enjoins me to have regard to ALL (my emphasis) the circumstances of the case", and that "I consider that these include both the public interest and the first defender's behaviour", I must ask you why you proceeded to then disregard ALL the significant circumstances of the case, and completely disregard the public interest by ignoring my exposé of the Crime Protection Syndicate and my exemplary behaviour in naming these low-life characters - all of which went unrewarded?LINK  What you did manage to do, however, was to preside over a shambles of a "show case" in which my wife was led by the nose like a lamb to the slaughter, in camera, by two posturing advocates.  One was supposedly acting ("acting" being the operative word) for and one against my wife, Gail Joughin and Eric W Robertson respectively, but they were both hostile to her best interests, making reference to only insignificant details on the periphery of the case and covering up all the foregoing corruption in the Scottish Legal System's covin, or Crime Protection Syndicate.  I must now presume you are acquiescing in and rubber-stamping all that corruption.  On that account, any decision taken in such kangaroo proceedings must be deemed irrelevant et separatim lacking in specification, invalid, null and void.

As Daniel Defoe said in "The History of the Kentish Petition", 1701, "Law is but a heathen word for power".LINK  Extremity of that heathen power, as meted out by you and your henchmen, originated in ignorance and malice, and serves only to gratify the passions from which it sprang.

I was the only person in Court 14 of the Court Session on 26 and 27 November 1998 who knows the entire relevant details of the case, and therefore the only person who could have shed some constructive light on the matters at hand, yet you ensured I was stymied from helping to clarify the matter.  If the truth is not accepted as a defence in a court of law, the courts become a sponsor for tyranny.  You, Lord Sandy Philip, promoted that tyranny, as did your aforementioned low-life henchmen in the Crime Protection Syndicate.

According to Ludovic Kennedy ~ "Let no one pretend that our system of 'justice' is a search for the truth.  It is nothing of the kind.  It is a contest between two sides played according to certain rules, and if the truth happens to emerge as a result of the contest, then that is pure windfall.  But it is unlikely to.  It is not something with which the contestants are concerned.  They are only concerned that the game is played according to the rules.  There are many rules and one of them is that some questions which might provide a shortcut to the truth are not allowed to be asked, and those that are asked are not allowed to be answered.  The result is that verdicts are often reached haphazardly, for the wrong reasons, in spite of the evidence, and may or may not coincide with the literal truth."  The literal truth was refused a seat at Lord Sandy Philip's banquet, or, rather, pantomime.

What started out, in my case, as an exposé of the invalidity of the Community Charge/Poll Tax in Scotland, led to the uncovering of the infinitely more seriously deep-rooted corruption throughout the extended legal system in Scotland, which is explained in considerable detail hereinafter.

Nevertheless, the moment I entered Court 4 in the Court of Session on Friday, 14 January 2000, the so-called "defence" advocate, Gail Joughin, gave you, Sandy Philip, a barely discernible nod.  Discreetly summoning the macer over, you quietly instructed him to remove me from the courtroom.  This gave you carte blanche to navigate the proceedings in any way you desired without the presence of one member of the public in the empty courtroom to give an objective appraisal of the matters at hand and to witness your obscurantism.  By ordering my removal, you also ignored the fact that a bankrupt, sequestrated legally or illegally, though not retrocessed, maintains a radical right and interest in his own estate.

My removal also enabled you to ignore the entire terms of my all-important defence and to later refer to me in your written judgment in any pseudo terms you chose to suit your purpose.

I was denied my locus standi (i.e. my right to be heard or participate in my case), in direct contravention of, inter alia, Article 6 of the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, now enshrined in UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998, which states: "In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time (my emphasis) … ."  The Scottish Parliament enshrined these Articles into Scottish law in the first month of its administration, but you ignored them.

Along with agents supposedly "for" and those against the Second Defender (my wife), you predetermined a path of least resistance against the Pursuer's case.  As expected, the time-honoured modus operandi was a litany of evasion and stonewalling.   You even prevented me from hearing my wife's evidence, lending her some moral support and witnessing further legal posturing on a grand scale.

The posturing advocates had a greater problem avoiding the essence of the case for hours on end than they would had they actually debated it, because the facts, as laid out in the terms of my chronology, a copy with which you were provided, are so straightforward it would be extremely difficult to deny I have an infallible case.  What took place was not a legitimate "Proof" hearing, but a lynching.  And you totally ignored Section 40(2) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985.

It was brought to my attention that Eric W Robertson, in summing up the case for the Pursuer on Friday, 11 February 2000, had the colossal gall to suggest that all aspects of the case should be considered before a final decision is made, which you referred to in your Opinion, as mentioned in the first paragraph of this letter.  This is rich indeed in the light of the fact that the Son of a Robber, Eric W Robertson, went to great lengths to prevent any part of my case from being considered when on 7 May 1997 he successfully had a motion passed in court by the colluding Temporary Lord Ordinary T Gordon Coutts QC to suppress the entire 14,000-plus words of my condescendence and have it deemed irrelevant et separatim lacking in specification.  As mentioned hereinbefore, Eric W Robertson painstakingly avoided the very essence of the case as he fumbled aimlessly around circumstances that existed only in the backwaters of his own imagination.  He almost gossiped himself to death – aided and abetted by Gail Joughin and you, Lord Philip.

The endless stream of lies, fudges and slanders, pouring out both advocates' crude, odious, repulsive language, flowed with your knowledge, consent, complicity and applause.   You also totally ignored Section 40(2) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985.

I believe also, Lord Philip, by your comments in court, that you are perpetuating the myth I was arguing my corner from a point of principle, when in fact, although high principles had its place in the case, I made it perfectly clear from Day-1 that I was arguing my case strictly in terms of the law.  I am perfectly well aware that if I argue a case in court on a moral principle I would be told I had taken my argument to the wrong tribunal, that I was in a court of law, not a court of principles, so I kept the arguments strictly within the terms of the written law.

The complete unfolding of this case since 1989 has seen a series of corrupt judges rubber-stamping corrupt decisions of other corrupt judges in an entirely contrived, stage-managed process.  I am in the hands of an endlessly implacable tyranny that abides by no code, legal or humane.  The maiden of justice is continually being raped by that tyranny.

However, as mentioned above, since you, Lord Sandy Filibuster Philip, and the secretive Jettison "Spec" figure, have chosen to ignore previous correspondence, I must reiterate the terms of my letters to you both of 1 October; 24, 17, 10 & 3 September; 27, 20, 13 & 6 August; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 July; 25, 18, 11 & 4 June; 28, 21, 14 & 7 May; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 April; 26, 19, 12 & 5 March; 27, 20, 13 & 6 February; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 January 2004; 26, 19, 12 & 5 December; 28, 21, 14 & 7 November; 31, 24, 17, 10 & 3 October; 26, 19, 12 & 5 September; 29, 22, 15, 8 & 1 August; 25, 18, 11 & 4 July; 27, 20, 13 & 6 June; 30, 23; 16, 9 & 2 May; 25, 18, 11 & 4 April; 28, 21, 14 & 7 March; 28, 21, 14 & 7 February; 31, 24, 17, 10 & 3 January 2003; 27, 20, 13 & 6 December; 29, 22, 15, 8 & 1 November; 25, 18, 11 & 4 October; 27, 20, 13 & 6 September; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 August; 26, 19, 12 & 5 July; 28, 21, 14 & 7 June; 31, 24, 17,10 & 3 May; 26, 19, 12 & 5 April; 29, 22, 15, 8 & 1 March; 22, 15, 8 & 1 February; 25, 18, 11 & 4 January 2002; 28, 21, 14 & 7 December; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 November; 26, 19, 12 & 5 October; 28, 21, 14 & 7 September; 31, 24, 17, 10 & 3 August; 27, 20, 13 & 6 July; 29, 22, 15, 8 & 1 June; 25, 18, 11 & 4 May; 27, 20, 13 & 6 April; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 March; 23, 16, 9 & 2 February; 26, 19, 12 & 5 January 2001; 29, 22, 15, 8 & 1 December; 24, 17, 10 & 3 November; 27, 20, 13 & 6 October; 29, 22, 15, 8 & 1 September; 25, 18, 11 & 4 August; 28, 21, 14 & 7 July; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 June; 26, 19, 12 & 5 May; 28, 21, 14 & 7 April; 31, 24, 17, 10 & 3 March; 25, 18, 11 & 4 February; 28 & 21 January 2000; and to Lord Jettison Johnston of 14 & 7 January 2000; 31, 24, 17, 10 & 3 December; 26, 19, 12 & 5 November; 29, 22, 15, 8 & 1 October; 24, 17, 10 & 3 September; 27, 20 13 & 6 August; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 July; 25, 18, 11 & 4 June; 28, 21 14 & 7 May; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 April; 26, 19, 12 & 5 March; 26, 19, 12 & 5 February; 29, 22, 15, 8 & 1 January 1999; 25, 18, 11 & 4 December; 27, 20, 13 & 6 November; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 October; 25, 18, 11 & 4 September; 28, 21, 14 & 7 August; 31, 24, 17, 10 & 3 July; 26, 19, 12 & 5 June; 29, 22, 15, 8 & 1 May; 24, 17, 10 & 3 April; 27, 20, 13 & 6 March; 27, 20, 13 & 6 February; 30, 23, 16, 9 & 2 January 1998; 26, 19, 12 & 5 December; 28, 21, 14 & 7 November; 31, 24, 17, 10 & 3 October 1997; and urge you to address all the points I raised, discontinue your malicious malfeasance, and return to the road of righteousness:

"Another crucial factor recently came to light, further cementing my infallible case.  Not only was the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc (Scotland) Act 1987 (the Poll Tax legislation) invalid in Scotland from the outset, and that my sequestration was a contrived, stage-managed, illegal process, but the deferment of the discharge date of the bankruptcy was invalid for yet another conclusive reason.  That is to say, my case in the Sheriff Court, exposing the invalidity of the sequestration, was remitted to the Court of Session on Wednesday, 12 April 1995, but the application for the deferment of the discharge date was not lodged in the Court of Session, but was lodged in the Sheriff Court, four-and-a-half months ‘after' my case was remitted to the Court of Session.  Of course, the deferment, like the bankruptcy proceedings three years earlier, was also railroaded through the Sheriff Court on a fast track by Sheriff Peter G B McNeill without permitting me the opportunity to submit a defence in opposition, or, on the latter occasion, to even appear in court.

"The all-important factor is, however, according to Lord Trayner's Latin Maxims: ‘Actor debet sequi forum rei:- "A pursuer raising an action against his debtor or obligant, must do so before the forum or court to the jurisdiction of which the defender is subject at the time.  The rationale of this rule is obvious; for if the defender be outwith the jurisdiction of the Court before which he has been cited, he is not bound, and cannot be compelled to answer before that Court; and any decree of that Court will be valueless, there being no way of enforcing it!"'

"So not only was the stage-managed bankruptcy railroaded through the court on a fast track by a politically and criminally corrupt process, but the deferment of the discharge date was railroaded through the ‘wrong' court on a fast track, making the decree valueless, ‘there being no way of enforcing it'!

"Nevertheless, I feel I must again refer you to my letters of 3 October; 26, 19, 11 & 4 September; 28, 22, 15, 8 & 1 August 1997; because I still await a reply.  I repeat their terms below to assist you in responding appropriately, particularly in the light of this latest crucial factor which emerged about the illicit deferment decree being granted outwith the jurisdiction of the Court before which I was subject at the time.

"Further to my motion before you [Lord (Big Al) Jettison Johnston] in Court 7 in the Supreme Courts, Parliament Square, Edinburgh, on Thursday, 24 July 1997, I think it is incumbent on you to explain why you refused my motion and willingly acquiesced in the catalogue of injustices in order to keep the gravy train running. Given that you are a member of the exclusive, secretive and highly suspect "Speculative Society", could you inform me if it this secret society heads the Crime Protection Syndicate in the interests of "Citizens-Above-Suspicion"?

"You were made aware in Court 7 at the hearing of my motion about the deep-rooted corruption to which I fell victim over many years.  You also had at your disposal copies of my defence, along with other documents I submitted.  But to jog your memory I will reiterate some of the more important points, which will hopefully enable you to respond in a fitting manner.

"Added to the Condescendence in my defence proper, on pages 30 to 47 of the Closed Record, I further submit that you [Lord Big Al Johnston] and Temporary Lord Ordinary Gogs Coutts QC [and now Lord Sandy Philip] are perfectly well aware of the truth surrounding my case.  I referred Gogs to the whole of my defence, which he had the advantage of reading prior to the commencement of the Procedure Roll hearing on 7 May 1997, as freely admitted by him on the penultimate line on Page 3 of his Opinion.  But even though he had the advantage of reading it beforehand, he still chose to ignore it in its entirety.  He simply refused to deal with one single solitary point I raised in my oral and written averments.  And you have now collaborated with him by rubber-stamping his decision. [We now have Lord Sandy Filibuster Philip rubber-stamping that same decision.]  It is indefensible to willingly cover up all the preceding illegalities surrounding my pretended bankruptcy.

"Be that as it may, as a direct result of certain sheriffs being embroiled in the politically corrupt scandal that was instrumental in stage-managing my bankruptcy, my case was remitted to the Court of Session on a motion for the so-called pursuer so that it would be heard by law lords in the supreme courts.  It was certainly not remitted to the Court of Session to be heard by Gogs Coutts - a tuppeny-ha'penny conniving lawyer masquerading as a law lord - precisely to ensure another decision would be railroaded through the court on a fast track, once again covering up his fellow conspirators' devious criminality.  Many other improprieties and illegalities are illustrated in my defence proper [and in the chronology of facts sent to Lord Sandy Philip, to agents for the pursuer, and to the Lord Chancellor and the Judicial Office at the House of Lords.]

"If the pursuer's Plea-in-Law No. 5 is to be accepted, i.e. that ‘the averments [from pages 18 to 59 of the Closed Record] of the First Defender [me] are irrelevant et separatim lacking in specification [and] they should not be remitted to probation', when my Condescendence alone [from pages 30 to 47 of the Closed Record], contained over 14,000 words, you, Lord (Big Al) Johnston and Gogs Coutts [and now Sandy Philip], are, in plain sublunary parlance, obviously just taking the piss!  What you are also in effect saying is that all the foregoing corruption and the stage management and illegal imposition of my pretended bankruptcy must be irrelevant; albeit acceptable to you.

"But rather than be lacking in specification, I doubt if ever there was a defence specified in such great depth and relevance.  It would be much more fitting if the pursuer's averments were deemed irrelevant because they conveniently ignored all the crucial and fundamental details of the case, details, as mentioned hereinbefore, which were instrumental in contriving the stage management of the illegal Sequestration.

"You, Lord Al Johnston and Mr Gogs Coutts [and now Lord Sandy Philip] know fully well that if my averments were admitted to probation, and particularly before a jury, I could not possibly lose my infallible case, and all you evil deviants would be exposed.

"You may well subscribe to the suspect ‘legal' slant that, ‘The best test of the truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market place – Chief Justice Wendell Holmes Jnr., 1841-1936', but I prefer the words of the immortal bard, Rabbie Burns: ‘Facts are chiels that winna ding, an' downa be disputed'; the definitive standard of truth!

"However, it is precisely because you know, Big Al, that I have an infallible case that you and Gogs Coutts [and Sandy Philip] are trying to stymie it.  Just another brute assertion in a long line of brute assertions that have been murmured in one ‘hush-hush' court proceedings after another in order to railroad through on a fast track one injustice after another cover-up, giving scant regard or no regard to the law, the concept of justice, the public interest, or to the infallible terms of my case.  You all have refused to address the very relevant averments in order to avoid making a proper judicious determination.

"As I told Gogs Coutts in Court 13 on the morning of Wednesday, 7 May 1997: ‘Any decision that declares any part of my Exposé/Defence irrelevant, would at the same time be a declaration that the court, the law, and, indeed, the very concept of justice were irrelevant.'  Gogs has provided the necessary confirmation in his written Opinion that his court and his concept of law and justice were irrelevant; and you, Big Al Johnston, have homologated his confirmation [and so too now has Sandy Philip].  That said, it is a shameful indictment on our legal system.  It is also an admittance that you are colluding with the contemptible gangsters who stage-managed my bankruptcy and who have subsequently maintained the farce.

"I am sure you will appreciate that one must never apologise for saying even the most unpleasant things which are needed most urgently to be said.   An old Islamic saying urges one to ‘call the devil by his name'.  I intend to do exactly that until I encounter some form of justice.

"At page 4 of his Opinion, Gogs Coutts had the audacity to refer to my rendition of facts as ‘scandalous, irrelevant and an abuse of process in the present proceedings' when it is precisely his disregard of the facts that are scandalous, irrelevant and an abuse of ‘power' in the present proceedings.  I even produced at the improperly and underhandedly devised Procedure Roll before Gogs Coutts the pursuer's (or so-called trustee's) ‘Inventory of Productions' which the pursuer/trustee himself submitted as evidence at my trial in the Sheriff Court on Wednesday, 15 November 1995, when I was accused of ‘Failure to provide a list of assets and liabilities [to the trustee] without reasonable excuse'.  Among the Inventory of Productions was the ‘unsigned' Oath by Creditor, which the pursuer/trustee must have submitted inadvertently because it provides proof positive that the sequestration was railroaded through illegally.  On the ‘Oath by Creditor' form there is a crucial proviso contained on it which states: ‘Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985 Section 11(1) – This oath must be sworn by the creditor or a person authorised to act on his behalf before a person entitled to administer the oath, e.g. in the UK a Notary Public (usually a Solicitor) or a Justice of the Peace.'

"Apart from the would-be creditor, Ian M Rogers, the Community Charges Registration Officer (CCRO) for Lothian, no longer having an interest in the pretended debt, as his job was made redundant on 5 April 1993, Gogs Coutts conveniently chose to ignore that Sheriff Peter G B McNeill forewent that crucial proviso in his eagerness to railroad the bankruptcy through his cash-and-carry, kangaroo court on Monday, 21 December 1992.  Gogs also conveniently ignored the fact that the bankruptcy was railroaded through after Sheriff Pedro McNeill refused to allow me the opportunity to ‘show cause why sequestration should not be awarded', in violation of Section 12(2) of the above Act.

In Cheshire and North's Private International Law, 12th edition, on page 385 at (b) Due notice and proper opportunity to be heard, it states at the 2nd paragraph: " … it is a violation of natural justice if a litigant, though present at the proceedings, was unfairly prejudiced in the presentation of his case to the court."  This proved to be a common theme that followed me from Day-1 all the way through to the Supreme Courts.  It was so obviously blatant and prevalent that it simply could not be coincidental.  It was high-level, predetermined, stage-managed thuggery of the highest order.

Gogs Coutts also chose to ignore in his Opinion that Pedro McNeill discounted the fact that I had an appeal lying in the Court of Session against Sheriff Andrew Montgomery Bell's earlier decision to refuse my appeal in the Sheriff Court and also against the same sheriff's decision to award expenses in favour of Ian Rogers (CCRO).

In my appeal before Sheriff Andy Bell on 28 May 1990, the former advocate, and now Britain's youngest ever judge, Robert Reed had represented the CCRO.  He tried painstakingly but ineffectively to argue that the ‘evident utility' safeguard in Article XVIII of the Treaty of Union 1707 did not apply in my case because the Poll Tax legislation involved ‘public right' facets of the law rather than ‘private right'.LINK  Sheriff Andy Bell fastened on to Rab's flimsy interpretation, saying: ‘Although matters of taxation concern "public right", it cannot be disputed that the Community Charge is also very much a matter of "private right", as it affects everyone individually.'  This frank and official appraisal would return to haunt him.  The proceedings ended with Andy Bell suggesting that any question of expenses should be waived.  This was after he learned from Rab Reed that I was the first appellant under the Community Charges legislation from whom expenses were being sought.

"Rab Reed, incidentally, also tried to use as a matter of persuasion a case involving ‘fishing rights'.  When I interjected with, ‘What on earth has fishing rights got to do with the imposition of the Poll Tax?', Rab, looking awkward and in some discomfort, let that particular ridiculously illogical supportive argument peter out.

"I received a copy of Sheriff Andy Bell's written ‘Opinion' three-and-a-half weeks later.  He dismissed my appeal and reserved the question of expenses until 27 June 1990.  It was stated in his Opinion that, ‘The provisions of the 1987 Act [the Poll Tax legislation] are fairly clearly "Laws concerning public right policy and Civil Government" and not "those concerning private right".'  This was diametrically opposed to his frank appraisal at the hearing of appeal.   Whoever got to him and corrupted him in the interim, certainly made him execute a breathtaking U-turn.  But that does not alter the fact that members of the public were held individually responsible for either registering for liability to pay the Poll Tax or for appealing against such liability.  And non-compliance carried a series of civil penalties involving a body of law that deals specifically with the rights of private individuals (i.e. the civil law).  If a person decided thereafter to appeal against the imposition of a civil penalty, the appeal was heard in a civil court and not the public (or criminal) court, and without the services of the public prosecutor.

"I appeared before Sheriff Andy Bell on 27 June 1990 to discuss the question of expenses, which, as Andy had suggested at the hearing proper, ought to be waived.  When he asked me if I had anything to say about the question of expenses, I asked him why he executed a breathtaking U-turn on the public-right/private right issue.LINK  It touched a very sensitive Achilles' heel.   His guilty demeanour drove him into provinces of chaotic disorder.  He lost control, threw a tantrum, awarded expenses in favour of Ian M Rogers CCRO, scurried out the courtroom and obviously didn't know what to do next.  I was left in the well of the courtroom along with an equally dumbstruck agent for the CCRO, as well as one bemused but well amused member of the public who witnessed the spectacle.  The lawyer and I looked at each other without articulating sound, and, with eyebrows sunken indicating bewilderment, hands outstretched by our sides, palms upwards, we shrugged our shoulders, didn't quite smile, picked up our respective papers and soft-pedalled out the empty spectrelike courtroom.  I soon realised I had not even been afforded the opportunity to properly explain why expenses should not be awarded.

"That was probably the most significant decision taken in the entire process because it led to the ramified intrigue that was much in evidence in numerous courtrooms following thereon, leading to the discovery of the infinitely more far-reaching pollution in the extended legal profession.  Having said that, the machinery had already been put in place to defeat anticipated Poll Tax dissenters some time before Sheriff Andy Bell executed his breathtaking U-turn.

"Returning to Temporary Lord Ordinary Gogs Coutts' written ‘Opinion', not only did he refuse to take into account the fact that the CCRO, Ian M Rogers, no longer had an interest in the pretended debt, or that Sheriff Pedro McNeill operated contrary to statute in granting sequestration, and that he done so while I still had an appeal pending in the Court of Session, but he also refused to take into account the fact that Pedro did not deny he was corrupt when accused by me as such in court on three occasions on the morning he railroaded through the bankruptcy decision.

"Another sinister factor that came to pass was that the ‘official' date of sequestration is registered as 27 November 1992, yet I was not to appear in court to ‘show cause why sequestration should not be awarded' until 21 December 1992, almost four weeks after the bankruptcy decision had obviously already been made in my absence and without intimation.  My ‘official' hearing on 21 December 1992 was obviously just a ‘show hearing' to serve the propaganda needs of the legal system's covin, or Crime Protection Syndicate.

"However, Temporary Lord Ordinary Gogs Coutts, in his written ‘Opinion', did not even address the facts as laid down in my averments.  That is to say, he ignored the fact that in the proceedings set up to discuss the Motion and Account of Expenses on 20 July 1992, five months before the bankruptcy railroad.  Sheriff Pedro McNeill steamrollered the pretended creditor's motion through the court in my absence, without giving me ample opportunity to appear in court to oppose or expose it.

"Both the Motion and Account of Expenses and the subsequent bankruptcy ‘show hearing' were steamrollered over while I had allowed my appeal against the decision of Sheriff Andy Montgomery Bell lie to the Court of Session (sent there by Sheriff Principal Gogs Nicholson QC) pursuant to Section 29(2) of the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc (Scotland) Act 1987.  The case before Sheriff Andy Bell, which created the pretended debt, was in respect of the CCRO's extravagant employment of an advocate-mouthpiece, Rab Reed.  He hired Rab to explain away his own earlier decision to refuse my appeal to him in his council office against my name being entered in his illegal register for liability to pay the invalid Community Charge/Poll Tax.  So the case before Sheriff Andy Bell was but an intermediate tribunal, yet Sheriff Pedro McNeill railroaded both the Motion and Account of Expenses and the bankruptcy hearing itself through the court while I awaited a date of hearing for my appeal in the Court of Session.

"Not only was Pedro deeply embroiled in the larger scheme of things, he may also have had another reason, a selfish, vengeful reason, to target me.  To understand the extent of the political corruption involving Pedro alone, we must go back to 18 November 1991. On that date, the Masonic Mafia in [the erstwhile] Lothian Regional Council applied to the Sheriff Court for a Summary Warrant against me, and it was railroaded through the court two days later (20 November 1991) in respect of pretended arrears of Community Charge/Poll Tax for 1991/92.  I wrote to the Sheriff Clerk Depute on 7 April 1992, enquiring about which politically corrupt employee of the former Lothian Regional Council sneakily applied for the warrant and which politically corrupt sheriff sneakily granted it in my absence and without intimation.  I learned from W. Cairns, Sheriff Clerk Depute, in a letter dated 15 April 1992 that the politically corrupt employee of the former Lothian Regional Council who sneakily applied for it was the Director of Finance, David B Chynoweth, and the politically corrupt sheriff who sneakily granted it was Peter G B McNeill.

"I wrote to Sheriff Pedro McNeill on 16 April and again on 5 May 1992 (since he failed to reply the first time), asking him to revoke the summary warrant that he granted ultra vires (beyond his legal authority) without first checking out the facts or without advising me to appear in court to shed some light on the invalid application and consequent travesty, rather than deciding sub rosa (in secret) to grant the summary warrant.  I also asked him to severely censure the politically corrupt gangster who applied for it as it was, inter alia, sub judice, given that I had an appeal pending in the Court of Session.  Sheriff Pedro McNeill was therefore made aware of the pending appeal two-and-a-half months before he dealt with the Motion and Account of Expenses, and six-and-a-half months before the bankruptcy proceedings was heard, or rather, not heard by him.  He did not reply to these two letters so I wrote a letter of complaint on 22 May 1992 to the Lord Advocate, Alan Rodger.  A copy of this letter was sent from the Scottish Courts Administration to the Regional Sheriff Clerk's Office and, although I received evasive responses from that office on 1 June, 8 June, 22 June and 3 July 1992, no one attempted to explain why I was not permitted the opportunity to oppose the application for a Summary Warrant in person, in court.   I eventually received a letter, dated 13 July 1992, from someone in the Scottish Courts Administration, writing on behalf of the Lord Advocate, that ‘it would not be appropriate for this Department or for the Lord Advocate to intervene in matters of judicial process'.  I assume they could only be referring to my appeal in the Court of Session as I had previously made them all cognisant of it.  This letter was dated exactly seven days before Pedro McNeill presided over the Motion and Account of Expenses.  Incidentally, to this day I have still not received a reply on the above specific points from Sheriff Pedro McNeill.

"Nonetheless, I was informed on 16 July 1992 by law agents from Drummond Miller Writers to the Syndicate (No! ‘Syndicate'!) that the Motion and Account of Expenses was to be heard only four days later, but, and here's the rub, I was not told in which of the many Sheriff Courts I should appear; they were not all housed within the same building at that time.  (The new Sheriff Court did not officially open until September 1994.)  With that in mind, I wrote to the court that same day and asked that my letter be put before the presiding sheriff – who just conveniently happened to be Pedro McNeill – to acquaint him with the political corruption I had faced, even up until then, and that I had an appeal pending in the Court of Session.  But he would already know all the details as he was an intrinsic part of the stage-managed process, so it was all to no avail.  The stage management of the bankruptcy process and the wheels of the runaway gravy train were well oiled long before then and were moving full steam ahead.

"When taking into account the fact that the Poll Tax legislation was invalidated in early 1993, and that my appeal cannot therefore now be heard under legislation that no longer exists, I must be given the benefit of the doubt that I would have won my appeal; or at least would not have lost it.

"By invalidating the Poll Tax legislation, Parliament and the courts, in effect, ran away from my appeal.  And just as the courts ran away from the terms of that appeal, you, Lord Big Al Johnston [Temporary Lord Ordinary Gogs Coutts and Lord Sandy Philip], have equally been running away from its sister case before you by systematically stymying it and preventing it from going to probation.

"You, Big Al Johnston and Gogs Coutts [and now Sandy Philip] also chose not to take into account the fact that I won my appeal in the High Court of Justiciary on Friday, 6 December 1996 against a decision by Sheriff Richard John Dinwoodie Scott.  Tricky Ricky found me guilty on Wednesday, 15 November 1995 in a ‘Trial-by-Ambush' of ‘failing without reasonable excuse to deliver to the interim trustee a list of assets and liabilities'.

"Although I was fined £100, I was disembarrassed of the guilty verdict and the £100 fine by the former Lord Justice-Clerk Ross and Lords Morison and Cowie when they overturned the guilty verdict on 6 December 1996 in the High Court of Appeal, Edinburgh, saying that Sheriff Rickie Scott was wrong for refusing to allow me the opportunity at my trial to challenge the validity of the sequestration'.  You, Big Al, and Gogs [and now Sandy] have blatantly and conveniently ignored that crucial fact.  It ought to have borne momentous significance to the civil proceedings, but instead, it was furtively swept under the carpet and prevented from going to probation.

"The Procedure Roll before Gogs Coutts was itself set up by skulduggery.  Mouthpiece for the pursuer, advocatus diaboli (devil's/satanic advocate) Eric (Son of a Robber) Robertson, claimed that agents for the Second Defender, my wife, agreed to the Procedure Roll hearing.  This was a barefaced, contemptible lie.  As I told both you, Big Al Johnston and Gogs Coutts, it was my wife who in fact informed her agents that a Procedure Roll was put on the agenda.  Until then, they were completely unaware of the Procedure Roll.  It was after the date of hearing was fixed for the motion that I informed my wife of the Procedure Roll.  Advocatus diaboli, Eric Robertson should be held accountable for lying to the court.  He should not be rewarded for his deceit.

"The Procedure Roll, for that reason alone, should have been cancelled by Lord Eassie in Court 4 on Thursday, 3 April 1997 when he heard my motion proposing that it ought to be cancelled.  I told Lord Eassie that the only reason the pursuer's motion was put on the agenda was to try to prevent my defence from being remitted to probation, stymie my infallible case in furtive chambers away from the public eye, and cover up all the preceding illegalities.  And that is exactly what ultimately happened, despite Lord Eassie's assurances it would not happen like that.

"When I explained to Lord Eassie that it was a barefaced lie that either of the Defenders, myself or my wife, agreed to the Procedure Roll, he still refused my motion to cancel it.  So not only should Lord Eassie have upheld my motion, but when I informed Temporary Lord Ordinary Gogs Coutts at the Procedure Roll that it had been put on the agenda underhandedly, and had been done so precisely to stymie my defence, he ought to have cancelled it right there and then.  But neither Gogs Coutts nor Lord Eassie before him engaged propriety and cancelled the Procedure Roll, even though they both knew it was put on the agenda through deceitful, furtive measures.

"What is more, despite knowing otherwise, Gogs Coutts falsely claimed in his Interlocutor that one of the Defenders agreed to the Procedure Roll.  This makes him no better than all the other morally bankrupt cretins who are subservient to him.  Hence, not only is he politically and/or criminally corrupt, he is also a cheap, worthless liar.  And since he is subservient to you, Lord Big Al Johnston, and keeping in mind that you rubber-stamped his ‘piss-taking' decision, this reveals that the scheming persecution must come from the highest echelons of our legal system.

"At page 4 of his ‘Opinion', Gogs Coutts seems to think that the pretended debt arose from non-payment of the Community Charge.  He conveniently disregards the fact that not one penny of the pretended debt arose from arrears or non-payment of the Community Charge as the money for so-called arrears and subsequent payments were docked at source from my income support benefit.  I explained that to you in depth, Big Al, in my motion on Thursday, 24 July 1997 in Court 7 of the Court of Session.

"Gogs Coutts also seems to be of the misapprehension at the foot of page 4 and the top of page 5 of his Opinion that I was asking him to rule on whether or not the Community Charge was valid in Scotland.  I was asking no such thing because that legislation was plainly and simply invalid in Scotland, as laid down by Article XVIII of the Union With Scotland Act 1706/Treaty of Union 1707, which unequivocally invalidates the Community Charge/Poll Tax in Scotland and no court or Act of Parliament is competent to rule otherwise.LINK  This was explained to Gogs Coutts at the hearing of the snidely arranged Procedure Roll.

"As I pointed out in my defence in the Closed Record, I do not need a seal of approval from any court, from Gogs Coutts, from the Lord President, from the Lord Advocate, from the Lord Chancellor, from the Prime Minister, or from any parliamentary dogma to qualify that fact.  Constitutional law unequivocally invalidated the Poll Tax in Scotland so it is not open to conjectural or selective interpretation from any quarter.

"What cannot be disputed is that on rushing the Poll Tax legislation through Parliament, the Government acted ultra vires, or beyond its legal authority.  The Government assumed powers for itself that were not vested in the office of government by the Treaty of Union because Article XVIII states that laws or taxes are alterable in Scotland and not throughout the rest of the United Kingdom only if they are for evident utility (i.e. for the benefit of the majority) of the people of Scotland.  But the Poll Tax was introduced in Scotland a year ahead of England regardless of the fact that this unfair tax, which benefited only the most affluent in society, was for evident 'inutility' of the majority of the people of Scotland, rendering the tax invalid in Scotland.

"Even if the entire Commons agreed to impose the tax in Scotland, every MP would be in breach of the very Act that united the parliaments of Scotland and England.  Parliament exists, and can legislate, only in terms of the Act that brought it into being.   The Poll Tax was introduced in Scotland without a mandate and in contempt of the Scottish people who had overwhelmingly rejected it in democratic elections in Scotland.  There was a distinct absence of the social consensus necessary for the Government to introduce the tax in Scotland one year ahead of England.

"The only valid argument to challenge that averment is that the Treaty of Union is itself invalid.   That argument would be based on the lines that the Treaty of Union breaches both the Declaration of Arbroath 1320 and the Treaty of Edinburgh/Northampton 1328 because both stipulate that Scots be not held in subjection to any other monarch.

"In 1707-Scotland, the Scots Parliament acted illegally in enacting legislation on behalf of the Scottish people who were overwhelmingly against the Union.  In Scots law the sovereign body for Scotland was, and still is, the whole of the Scottish people.  Their official approval was required to give legality to the Act of Union.

"The Treaty was also illegal under Scottish law because Members of the Scottish Parliament were bribed and corrupted into passing the legislation.LINK  This is an accepted historical fact.  Accordingly, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to this day is an illegal administration and Queen Elizabeth II is an illegal monarch of an illegally assembled kingdom.  So, if the Treaty is invalid, there can be no legitimate Union, and if there is no legitimate Union the Poll Tax would still be invalid.  Whichever argument you choose, the Poll Tax was invalid in Scotland.

"On the one hand, at a General Election, the Scottish electorate delegate only part of their sovereignty to their elected representatives – representatives as opposed to masters – because the British Parliament has never been sovereign over the affairs of the Scottish people.  On the other hand, as everyone who got the 3-Rs understands, the Poll Tax unequivocally breached Article XVIII of the Treaty of Union.  What is more, not only was the Poll Tax introduced in Scotland a year ahead of England, but it was never introduced in another part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, which is another serious breach of the Treaty of Union.

"Parliament, in effect, abolished domestic rates without replacing it with a legitimate alternative in Scotland.  That the Poll Tax has long been repealed, bolsters that claim.

[What bolsters that claim even more is that on Saturday, 18 May 2002, the present leader of the party that imposed the Poll Tax illegally in Scotland, Iain Duncan Smith, admitted at the Scottish Tory Conference in Perth that the Conservatives made a mistake by introducing the Poll Tax in Scotland before the rest of the UK.  This illustrates in the clearest terms that, after the imposition of the Poll Tax, the Scottish judiciary kowtowed to their political masters in London and that the Thatcher Government of the day exploited their decrepitude, unclothed them, disabled their ability to make judicious determinations, and simply treated them with derision.  That now being established, a response is eagerly awaited from Messrs Ian M. Rogers CCRO; Sheriffs Andrew Montgomery Bell, Peter G B McNeill, Richard John Dinwoodie Scott, and Farrell; Temporary Lord Ordinary T Gordon Coutts, and Lords Eassie, Alan C M Johnston, and Sandy Philip; advocates, Eric W Robertson, Gail Joughin and former advocate and now Scotland's youngest ever appointed judge, Robert Reed; chartered accountants and pretended trustees, Graham Ritchie and J S S Graham of Ernst & Young; former Accountants in Bankruptcy, George Leslie Kerr and Stephen Woodhouse, and Assistant Correspondence Officer in the Office of the Accountant in Bankruptcy, John Gordon Stirling.  You will have gathered by now that a printed retraction or apology will not suffice.  However, when extensive victimisation and collusion prevails in cases such as mine, out-of-court settlements are not unusual, particularly when negotiated in sterling.]

"Back to Gogs Coutts' written Opinion.  Contrary to what Gogs might think, or, for that matter, yourself, Lord Big Al Johnston (and now Lord Sandy Philip], I am not citing any other case for justification to challenge the validity of the Poll Tax; I am citing only Article XVIII of the Treaty of Union.  And contrary to what Gogs avers on page 4 of his Opinion, I am not ‘seeking to challenge in the same position as the appeals of Murray -v- Rogers and Fraser -v- McCorkindale, 1992 S.L.T. 221 and 229, as made manifest in my defence in the Closed Record.

"Besides, as also mentioned in that defence, it was the selfsame politically corrupt sheriff, Pedro G. B. McNeill – the man responsible for much of the stage management of my pretended bankruptcy and for much of its subsequent maintenance – who also presided over the Murray -v- Rogers case.  There was a cosy little set-up in the legal system's covin, or Crime Protection Syndicate, at that time.  What you had was Sheriff Pedro McNeill, Ian M Rogers CCRO, and advocate Rab Reed, specialising in defeating Poll Tax dissenters.  Together they were a triumvirate corrigendum, who had to be corrected.  This ‘triumvirate' was party to the skulduggery in both my case and in Randolph Murray's case.  Rab Reed was the extravagant mouthpiece for the CCRO and connived with him to sustain the political corruption in both cases, as explained in more detail in the terms of my defence in the Closed Record.  [Rab Reed, for his sins, has since been elevated to the bench, as hereinbefore mentioned.]

"From the earliest days the case of Randolph Murray against Ian Rogers CCRO, was used by Ian Rogers as a supportive argument to refuse my appeal even though our respective appeals came under different sections of the Poll Tax legislation, and that we were arguing our respective corners from different standpoints.  Randolph Murray, a solicitor and partner with Marshall Henderson & Whyte SSC, 15 Stafford Street, Edinburgh, represented CAP-T (Citizens Against the Poll Tax), a middle-class group organised to fight the Poll Tax.   Sheriff Pedro McNeill refused his appeal on 12 June 1989, but Mr Murray let it lie to the Court of Session, as I would later do.  But the crux of the matter is that the CCRO knew Mr Murray's appeal was still under judicial deliberation when he used his case as a supportive argument to try to justify his decision against my case.  This was an unmitigated abuse of the legal process, as he knew perfectly well that it was sub judice since he was personally involved in both cases!

"On the 24 July 1990, I attended an appointment at 4.00pm with Randolph Murray in his office in Stafford Street with a view to apply for legal aid to cover the cost of my appeal to the Court of Session. Mr Murray, I had been advised, was the only lawyer in Edinburgh representing Poll Tax dissenters.  As coincidence would have it, Mr Murray received his own (adverse) result from the Court of Session that day in respect of CAP-T members.  He gave me a copy of the written decision.

"He told me he would apply for a sist (a postponement) of process in my case on the grounds I was applying for legal aid.  After reading the adverse ‘Opinion' by the Lord President Lord Hope, and Lords Grieve and Kirkwood regarding Mr Murray's appeal, it soon became apparent to me that the terms of the appeal were laid down entirely at his own discretion with little input from his clients.  And although that discretion appeared largely competent, it did not invite the court to simply acknowledge and accept the legality and constitutionality of the Treaty of Union.  When Mr Murray read the terms of my appeal he began prompting me to proceed more or less along the same lines as his appeal, despite the fact that he had just lost his!  He did not seem to have the appetite to simply bring the Treaty of Union to the court's notice and declare the Poll Tax legislation incontrovertibly illegal in Scotland.

"Realising his discomfort over this, I suggested he merely applies for legal aid on my behalf then I would represent my own case on my own terms thereafter.  From the outset I had found it nigh impossible to get legal representation in this case because every lawyer I phoned seemed to have a ready prepared answer, in the form of a question: ‘Why do you not want to pay the Poll Tax?'  The follow-up was invariably in the form of advice: seek counsel elsewhere.  The legal establishment, obviously on orders from their political masters in London, had closed ranks to defeat Poll Tax dissenters, and particularly those who recognised that ‘the emperor had no clothes on', so to speak, pointing out to them that the Poll Tax was irrefutably illegal in Scotland.

"Mr Murray, for his part, then tried to put me off by suggesting that I had very little chance of being granted legal aid.  I told him that if legal aid was refused my case would be all the stronger for it when I complained to the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.    He reluctantly saw my point.

"After further futile attempts to make me moderate the terms of my appeal, he meekly said: ‘I'm fifth division stuff compared with these guys (i.e. the powers that be in the Court of Session).'  I was utterly flabbergasted that a lawyer could have such an inferiority complex, coupled with the shamelessness to represent other people while harbouring that type of attitude.  I suppressed my consternation because I knew that Randolph Murray was my one and only hope of getting legal aid. [I would later be convinced that he was the final link in the cosy triumvirate corrigendum, put in place to defeat the ends of justice and maintain the illegal Poll Tax in Scotland.  The legal establishment had closed ranks and the legal vultures affiliated to the Law Society of Scotland were pointing potential clients in the direction of Randolph Murray in order to ensure that a tight rein of consistency was kept on the written submissions of the appellants and the respondents alike, and consequently in the determinations of the beaks.]

"Exactly one week after I had been in his office, Randolph Murray phoned me (at 4.30pm on 31 July 1990) from the Supreme Courts in Parliament Square.  He anxiously told me that not only would he not be applying for a sist of process, but that he had just been advised to have nothing to do with my case, and if he complied, all expenses incurred by members of CAP-T would be waived.  It is worth remembering that the alleged expenses incurred by the CCRO, for which I was to be illicitly held accountable, in the Sheriff Court paled by comparison to the grandiose expenses incurred by members of CAP-T in the superior court.

"This confirms that the expenses being extorted from me was never a real issue to begin with.  The money factor was just a front.  The real reason for pursuing the pretended debt was to teach a member of the public a lesson for having the gall to expose the illegality in Scotland of the Community Charge/Poll Tax and for thereafter forcing many of the corrupt operatives in our legal system into the open and rousing them into showing their true colours.

Be that as it may, I told Mr Murray I understood the predicament in which he found himself and that I accepted there was perhaps a conflict of interest between me and CAP-T and that the interests of the majority must be maintained.  I would like to think he was being truthful about this threat/offer he received, but I will probably never know for sure.  In a still almost panic-stricken voice he wished me the best of luck, which I appreciated because I think he might have meant it.

"Back again to Temporary Lord Ordinary Gogs Coutts' Opinion regarding the Procedure Roll.   At the final paragraph on page 4 of his Opinion, Gogs states: ‘In relation to the defender's contentions about the validity of the Treaty of Union in if it could ever be competently raised in the "present process" [my emphasis] …'  But how could the Treaty of Union be competently ignored in the present process, given that it has been an essential part of my case from the very beginning, from away back in the CCRO, Ian M Rogers' former council office at 30-31 Queen Street, Edinburgh, on Monday, 18 December 1989, and in every other tribunal following thereon, right through to the present day?

"No one has yet denied, nor has the competence to deny, the validity of the Treaty of Union, so therefore no one can argue against the terms on which I base, indeed, establish, my case.  Not you Lord Big Al Johnston, not Temporary Lord Ordinary Gogs Coutts [not Lord Sandy Philip], nor anyone else, and you cannot simply wish away that fact.

"Gogs Coutts further states at the top of page 5 of his Opinion: ‘The sheriff [in the Fraser -v- McCorkindale case], in my view, correctly rejected the purported constitutional argument as having in the first place no substance and in the second not being a justiciable issue determinable by the courts.  If it were necessary to do so I would have held that the defender' defences had they relevantly challenged the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc (Scotland) Act 1987 were misconceived.'

"The first point here is, I do not think anyone is interested in what Gogs Coutts' view is on the decision by a sheriff in the Fraser -v- McCorkindale case.  Nor whether or not he thinks the sheriff in that case ‘correctly rejected the purported constitutional argument as having in the first place no substance and in the second not being a justiciable issue determinable by the courts'.  Irrespective, his statement is singularly contradictory.  How can a sheriff reject a constitutional argument as having no substance?  If a constitutional argument has no substance, what other argument could possibly have any substance?  Additionally, if a constitutional argument has no substance, the authority of the court itself must have less than no substance!

"But having made that astonishing claim, how can Gogs then assert that a constitutional argument is not a justiciable argument determinable by the courts when he is in the very process of making a justiciable determination?  Anywhere outside the realms of the judiciary such comments would be treated with derision.

"What is more, only God Almighty has the authority to reject a constitutional argument.  Gogs' rejection of a constitutional argument, however, is simply an extension of the cop-out tactics plied by sheriffs Andy Montgomery Bell, Pedro G B McNeill and Rickie John Dinwoodie Scott [and more recently (i.e. Tuesday, 18 July 2000) Sheriff Farrell, as mentioned hereinafter].  Like Sheriff Andy Bell years previously, Gogs Coutts conceded in court that neither he nor anyone else is competent to contest, overrule, or even ignore the terms laid down in the Treaty of Union, but then proceeded to do exactly that when making avizandum.

"The second point about Gogs Coutts' statement at the top of page 5 of his Opinion is that for him to say, ‘If it were necessary to do so I would have held that the defenders' defences had they relevantly challenged the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc (Scotland) Act 1987 were misconceived', reveals that he has paid scant regard or no regard to the averments in my defence in the Closed Record (which he claims to have read) because I could not have specified more relevantly and in such great length and detail the reasons the Poll Tax was invalid in Scotland.  I have specified a considerable amount of my defence but in much less detail in this letter.

"But the mere fact that Gogs claimed that the challenge to the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc (Scotland) Act 1987 was misconceived, illustrates he is one of three things: (a) stupid; (b) illiterate; or (c) politically and possibly criminally corrupt; because Article XVIII of the Treaty of Union unequivocally invalidates the Poll Tax legislation.  Now I know that QCs get a privileged education, and are in some cases even intelligent, and seldom downright stupid or illiterate, so I must give Gogs the benefit of the doubt and assume his shortcomings result from subservient political and possibly criminal corruption.

"Returning to the constitutional argument; it may well be that in his role as a temporary judge and in his role as a lackey in the legal system's covin or Crime Protection Syndicate, Gogs Coutts is not competent to overrule an Act of Parliament (i.e. the Poll Tax legislation), but as a private citizen Gogs most certainly would be competent to overrule, ignore or dismiss a parliamentary enactment that is inconsistent with and contrary to the Union With Scotland Act 1706/Treaty of Union 1707.  That is to say, if Gogs is not competent to call into question an Act of Parliament, Parliament is similarly not competent to call into question a superior authority: the Treaty of Union.  Particularly since the former contravenes the latter and more superior authority.

"And similar to Gogs Coutts' position, if the supreme courts in Scotland refuse to declare that an unconstitutional Act of Parliament is illegal, it does not mean to say that the individual is handicapped with the same restrictions.  A private citizen requires the courts to merely acknowledge the existence and authority of the superior, constitutional enactment in order to call upon that enactment to neutralise any ruling by any court or by Parliament that is contrary thereto.  This equally applies to Parliament.   If the courts are restricted by Parliament, Parliament is also restricted by the individual who reminds that chamber it is contravening the Treaty of Union; or the still higher Scottish authority: the Scottish people.LINK

"The Scottish people – the ultimate Scottish authority notwithstanding the Treaty of Union - were perfectly within their rights to simply ignore the Poll Tax legislation since it was plainly unconstitutional, illegal and unenforceable.  The illegal Poll Tax not only compromised and negatived the very sovereignty of Parliament, but Parliament, in turn, compromised and negatived our courts.

"Parliament committed a constructive fraud on our courts, then our courts joined Parliament in an obscene embrace.  The courts showed extreme bias against me, and the Scottish people in general, casting doubt on the integrity of the judicial process.  To all intents and purposes, all that the Scottish people were required to do was simply pull rank on both the courts and Parliament, remind them of the Treaty of Union, or of the ultimate authority, the Scottish people, and ignore or dismiss the Poll Tax legislation.

"Given, therefore, that the Poll Tax was illegal in Scotland from its inception, I cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered to be a bankrupt or a debtor, and if I am not a debtor, no one can claim to be a creditor.  In fact, not you, Lord Big Al Johnston, not Gogs Coutts, [not Lord Sandy Philip] nor the so-called pursuer could put a name to one solitary person who is supposed to be the creditor.  The CCRO, Ian M Rogers, cannot now, even in Sheriff Pedro McNeill's kangaroo court, be construed as a creditor because the CCRO left the employment of the former Lothian Regional Council on 5 April 1993 after the Community Charge/Poll Tax was officially invalidated.  Hence, the job of Community Charges Registration Officer became redundant.

"It stands to reason, therefore, that the extortionate expenses incurred by the CCRO, in the ‘intermediate case' before Sheriff Andy Montgomery Bell, cannot be passed on to a successor employee because no successor employee exists in a redundant job, thus no successor creditor exists.  And since a would-be creditor does not exist, I cannot be classified as a would-be debtor.  Aside from that, it was Ian M Rogers' name, and his name alone, that appeared on all the legal documents that went before the court; not the name of the council.

"What makes it all the more outrageous is that the averments in my defence are not to be remitted to probation, but are to be deviously hidden from the public eye.  In the light of these facts, how can you, Big Al Johnston and Gogs Coutts [and now Sandy Philip], possibly justify your clandestinity and deny your despicable role in the shady dealings!

"You ought to have faced up to the fact that I was never sequestrated by a properly conducted legal process in the first place.  And given that the decision by former Lord Justice-Clerk Ross, and Lords Morison and Cowie in the High Court of Appeal, which projects the implication that the decision by Sheriff Pedro McNeill to sequestrate me was, to put it in its most generous terms, unsafe, I clearly cannot be considered a bankrupt.  So, if I was not a bankrupt to begin with, the so-called bankruptcy discharge date could not legally be deferred for two years from and after 27 November 1995.  By that time, Sheriff Pedro McNeill had a vested interest in sustaining the illicit process to cover up for his atrocious involvement hitherto.

"But the question that still remains unanswered is, ‘on whose behalf was the discharge date extended if the pretended creditor no longer existed?'  This extension also enabled the would-be trustee, Graham Ritchie, Chartered Racketeer with the Ernst & Young Gang, to keep the gravy train running, even though the pretended creditor Ian M Rogers - had he still been employed in his former job as CCRO - no longer had an interest in the pretended debt because Bitchy Graham BankRitchie's, outlays and remuneration, by law, overrides the original alleged debt.  Bitchy's expenses had advanced away beyond that initial alleged debt in a very short time indeed.  Any alleged creditors were therefore unable to receive a copper coin, and it was all down to the fact that Bitchy Graham CockRoachie refused to accept payment from a third party in respect of the pretended debt before he had submitted any accounts of intromission for his outlays and remuneration.

"To demonstrate one of CockRoachie's lesser crimes, but crime nevertheless, he itemised a charge of £70.20 for a property valuation by D. M. Hall, Chartered Surveyors, in his ‘Statement of Expenses'.  However, no one, but no one, valued the property of my family home on behalf of the Cockroach because I most certainly would not allow representatives of gangsters to darken my doorstep for any purpose, let alone to value my home.  So not only is he - and D. M. Hall - contemptible liars, they are also worthless extortionists.

[Why does it not surprise me that the Ernst & Young Gang is being investigated by Equitable Life for negligence (The Scotsman, 16 April 2001), and that Radio 4 reported at 8.00pm from Manchester on Tuesday, 9 October 2001, that Ernst & Young presented two different sets of accounts to Equitable Life, the Regulator and Investors, and that the big scandal has been kept quiet?  The crooked practices of the praying mantises in the Ernst & Young Gang are being found out at last!]

"Nevertheless, this scoundrel of a trustee, so-called, was in a position to have false accounts of intromission fixed by a conniving Accountant in Bankruptcy, Herr George Leslie Kerr [and rubber-stamped by his successor, Stevie Woodhouse in respect of pretended outlays and remuneration for sending circulars to ‘all known creditors'.

"Given that there are no known creditors, Bitchy Graham CockRoachie's outlays and remuneration would amount to the staggering figure of ‘nixnie ky', but the Hound from Hell and his Limb-of-Satan collaborator, Herr Geordie Les Kerr, came up with, for one six-month accounting period alone, the sum of £550.81 for outlays and £686.00 for remuneration for sending no circulars to no known creditors.  And his very first account of intromission was belatedly applied for and fixed outwith the two-week time-bar period.   In fact, Geordie fixed the account 16 months after that particular accounting period.

"Had it not been for the fact the case was remitted to the Court of Session on a motion in the Sheriff Court on 12 April 1995 by advocatus diaboli Eric (Son of a Robber) Robertson, ‘legal' agent for the pursuer, these erroneous outlays and remuneration would never have come into the equation.  And had the pursuer accepted the offer by a third party to pay the pretended debt to the so-called creditor four weeks later, these erroneous outlays and remuneration would similarly never have come into the equation.  Perhaps the reason agents for the pursuer could not accept the offer from a third party to pay the pretended debt was that no creditor existed to ask if the offer was acceptable.

"However, Temporary Lord Ordinary Gogs Coutts conceded he had read the full facts of my engineered bankruptcy immediately prior to the Procedure Roll, but, having made avizandum, he still proceeded to divert a discourse from the terms of my defence with the pretence that it was ‘so overlaid with scandalous and scurrilous assertion that it would be wrong to permit any of the first defender's documents to go to probation'.  But what he was actually saying here was that he was refusing to address the real scandal and the real scurrilous assertions; i.e. those of all the politically and criminally corrupt sheriffs who ignored the facts, like himself, and like yourself, Lord Big Al Johnston [and now Lord Sandy Philip], and acquiesced in the stage management of my bankruptcy and also with its continuation, making me a victim of a deep-rooted evil in our legal system's covin - or Crime Protection Syndicate.

"On another note, I see that my motion before you, Big Al, was given a specific time on the agenda, which was after all the other motions had been dealt with.  This was obviously to ensure that my motion, just like the Procedure Roll, was conducted in clandestinity with as few people present as possible - and with not one single member of the public – to witness the injustice.

"In any event, you and Gogs Coutts [and Sandy Philip] refused to condemn the catalogue of corruption that went beforehand, so this makes all three of you, along with Lord Eassie, as despicable as all the other low-life rodents."

After you made your decision, Big Al, to refuse my motion on Thursday, 24 July 1997 in Court 7 of the Supreme Courts, I notice you did not refute my accusation of "Further Corruption", which I repeated louder a second time just in case you did not hear me the first time.  You definitely heard me the second time because you made as if to turn round to respond just as you were leaving the courtroom.  You half-turned, hesitated, steadied yourself, and then continued to sneak through the doorway.  Your failure to refute the allegation must be regarded as corroboration of your involvement in the Scottish legal system's covin, or Crime Protection Syndicate, because when I accused Sheriff Pedro McNeill of corruption on three occasions in the well of his court at the bankruptcy proceedings on 21 December 1992, he did not attempt to deny it either.   In fact, he did not even raise his eyes from his record of the day's malign business.  He simply could not look his accuser in the eye to exhibit to a packed courtroom his guilt-ridden demeanour.

Incidentally, while you were pussyfooting about, shirking your responsibilities, Ritchie the Rogue continued to collude with the Accountant in Bankruptcy to get him to audit further false accounts of intromission.  The former Accountant in Bankruptcy, Geordie Kerr, fixed the Hound from Hell's amount of outlays and remuneration at £40.00 and £707.50 respectively for the period 24 May 1997 to 23 November 1997.  He even got his falsely submitted accounts wrong when he somehow arrived at a figure of £1,358.36 for these pretended outlays and remuneration.  Since then, he has submitted further accounts, as mentioned hereinafter.

It has to be said, it is an absolute outrage that after a hearing in Court 7 in the Sheriff Court on Tuesday, 18 July 2000, Sheriff (Got-The-Public-Over-a-Barrel) Fraudulent Farrell railroaded a decision through the court in favour of the Accountant in Bankruptcy Geordie Kerr's successor, Stevie Woodhouse, who was represented by Mr William Holligan, a partner with the dubious and much maligned and malevolent law firm Brodies, Writer to the Syndicate (No! "Syndicate"! The Crime Protection Syndicate, that is!).  The decision flew in the face of factors both legal and moral.  This was the 13th account of intromission I had appealed against, yet, sinisterly, this was the one and only time I was permitted my legal right to an appeal hearing.  The hearing before Sheriff Farrell was actually only a preliminary one as Mr Holligan had lodged a motion to prevent my appeal proper going ahead (it all seems so familiar!).  Mr Holligan went on at great length and said next to nothing of any relevance or import.  In fact, the only two points he raised of any substance turned on their own merits and he shot himself in the foot, cementing again my infallible case.

He said: "Had Mr Burns appealed against earlier ‘accounts of intromission' a whole different mechanism would apply."  Mr Holligan was actually handing me the case on a plate because, as mentioned above, I appealed against each and every one of the previous twelve accounts of intromission up until then, but sinister forces in the Sheriff Court would not allow my appeal to be heard, smashing every fructifying principle of equity and justice that we thought we could normally take for granted in our courts.  I explained all this to Sheriff Farrell and said that Mr Holligan, by his own admission, was saying that a whole different mechanism did indeed apply in my case.  Only in a court of law could such a lost cause as Mr Holligan's be endorsed.

Mr Holligan also used as a supportive argument, or as a matter of persuasion, the case of Tinlin -v- The Accountant in Bankruptcy before Sheriff MacPhail QC in the Scots Law Times dated 14 December 1998, Page 59.  Between sections J & K it states: "The significant part of Sheriff MacPhail's decision was that ‘The noter's dissatisfaction with the way his bankruptcy has been administered, and in the efficient administration of the estate, are no doubt of concern to him personally, but he has not been able to show that anything has been done to his disadvantage'."  In my case, however, I informed Sheriff Farrell that I had submitted to the court a whole catalogue of "things that have been done to my disadvantage".  This included the fact that my appeal against the conviction and fine I received for refusing to submit to the pretended trustee a list of my assets and liabilities, was upheld by the then Lord Justice-Clerk Ross and Lords Morison and Cowie.  However, I might just as well have been talking to a cardboard cut-out of a sheriff.

On hindsight, I have no idea why I was even invited to Sheriff Farrell and Mr Holligan's pantomime.  Sheriff Farrell had already predetermined a path of least resistance to Mr Holligan's motion, just like every other "legal " deviant did before him.  He based his written decision - after making avizandum - on a litany of evasion and stonewalling, disguising the primary issues and giving credence, not to Mr Holligan's secondary issues, but to his agonisingly tortuous nonissues, in a nurtured impediment to natural justice.

In a letter from Sheriff Clerk Depute, George W. McIlwain, Mr McIlwain asserted: "I acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 29 July 2000 regarding the above appeal [against the Accountant in Bankruptcy fixing Graham Ritchie's 13th account of intromission], and have to advise you that in terms of section 52(6)(b) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985 ‘the decisions of a Sheriff in such an appeal shall be final'.  There is therefore no appeal available in terms of the statute."

I cannot think of anything more contemptible than a supposedly neutral and impartial judiciary instructing their clerks to blatantly lie to the public.  We just cannot tolerate a dishonest judiciary.  There is absolutely nothing in section 53(6)(b) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985, which states, "the decisions of a Sheriff in such an appeal shall be final".  To say also, "there is therefore no appeal available in terms of the statute" is intentionally misleading because the fact of the matter is that there are no terms available in the statute which prohibits an appeal.  Misleading and lying to the public is plainly pathetic, perverse and downright sickening.

What makes matters even worse is that not only had the so-called trustee Bitchy Graham CockRoachie submitted false and self-inflicted accounts of intromission, but he also persisted in doing so outwith the 2-week time-bar period prescribed by Section 53(1) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985.  So, apart from the former Accountant in Bankruptcy Geordie Kerr ignoring the crucial factor of Actor debet sequi forum rei, he also ignored the laws in respect of the 2-week time-bar period, giving CockRoachie unconditional authorisation to operate outside the law.  These rank obscenities must come to an end sometime and someone must take responsibility for making the guilty parties accountable.

Apart from being denied my locus standi (i.e. my right to be heard or participate in my case) in violation of, inter alia, Article 6 of the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms - enshrined in UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998, and in Scottish law in the first month of the Scottish Parliament sitting - you, Lords Philip and Johnston and Temporary Lord Ordinary Coutts, are also violating Article 8, which states: "(1) Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence; and (2) There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."  It is patently clear that the Scottish judiciary has failed to implement these particular Articles of the Convention in my case because, first, "I was denied my basic right to be heard or participate in my case", and, second, "public authorities are interfering with my right to respect for my private and family life, and my home".  You do not need me to tell you that it is mandatory for the Scottish judiciary to observe the Articles of the European Convention and put them into effect.  But why let laws and justice get in the way of a good gerrymandering scam!

Some long-cherished illusions of mine about the great legal system in our country have had to undergo a painful reappraisal, comprehensively destroying my earlier respect.  Even my earlier respect for the former Lord Justice-Clerk RossLINK, and Lords MorisonLINK  and CowieLINK  had to go through an unexpected reappraisal because I later discovered that all three were members of the secretive, exclusive and highly suspect "Speculative Society of Edinburgh (Spec)", which has its origins in Masonry.  So it could well be that one of the grounds on which they refused to collaborate with all the other crooks was that I had been regularly referring to the shady Masonic involvement of the Masonic Mafia in the erstwhile Lothian Regional Council.  It was the Head of Finance in the Council, C. B. Chynoweth, who applied to similarly dark forces in our courts for an illegal warrant.

The main reason, I suspect, they wanted to distance themselves from these dark forces was that, only a few months earlier in 1996, I had been at loggerheads with their "Spec" Brother, Lord Cullen.LINK  This was about the Masonic cover-up, by Cullen, into his pseudo-Inquiry into the Dunblane massacre of 16 schoolchildren and their teacher, which took place in March of that year.LINK  These three Spec-member judges, by delivering an unexpected and unfamiliar prudent decision, must have been simply "diverting the discourse" (a Masonic ruse) from the perceived deep-rooted corruption of Masonry in our society, particularly in the extended legal profession.  Lord Ross was on the Board of Directors at Queen Victoria School in Dunblane where the killer and paedophile Thomas Hamilton had almost unrestricted access.LINK  Nevertheless, I will not rest while conniving miscreants in the highest chambers of depravity try to bury the truth about my, inter alia, illegal bankruptcy, in order to cover up all the foregoing gangsterism, making me and my family victims of their degenerate disposition.

I must say, I had to titter, Sandy, at your comment at the top of page 9 of your "Opinion" in which you said: "In the absence of any more specific or detailed criticism of the trustee's actings, there are, in my view, no grounds for finding that the trustee has acted improperly or incurred unnecessary expense.  In these circumstances there is nothing in the trustee's conduct which affects my determination of this application."

This is absolutely preposterous, considering that you, yourself, were flabbergasted at how the dripping roast was allowed to exude copious flows of rich gravy from the public purse, amounting to over £40,000 and rising, from an initial pretended debt of £965.  And that did not take into account the cost of counsel and court fees.  Nor does it take into account the trustee's refusal to accept payment from a third party before any accounts of intromission were submitted to the Accountant in Bankruptcy.  Nor does it take into account that the only person who profited from the continuance of the sequestration was the trustee because the creditor, so-called, no longer had an interest in the pretended debt; for two reasons: (i) his job became redundant on 5 April 1993; and (ii) his £965 pretended debt was overridden by the trustee's exorbitant claim for expenses in a very short time, indeed.LINK  If that does not warrant criticism in your eyes, it illustrates the enormity of the corruption that is tolerated within the extended legal system's Crime Protection Syndicate.

To make matters worse, another cockroach from the Ernst & Young Gang, J S S Graham, replaced Graham BankRitchie as the pretended trustee, despite you stating yourself in the middle of paragraph 11 on page 8 of your Opinion: "A trustee could only be authorised from realising the estate if the creditors instructed him to do so." So, even if Ian M Rogers was still CCRO, and a bona fide creditor, why on earth would he instruct Graham Cockroachie to refrain from realising my estate when Ian Rogers himself had no interest whatsoever in that estate, keeping in mind that Cockroachie's expenses nullified Ian Rogers' more than forty times over and so Ian Rogers stood to gain nothing?  The bottom line is, J S S Graham unilaterally and illegally replaced Graham BankRitchie as acting trustee of my estate, and his Accounts of Intromission continued to be submitted to the Accountant in Bankruptcy - and the Accountant in Bankruptcy still illegally audited them.  The illicit two years deferment of the discharge date of my sequestration, that was granted outwith the jurisdiction of the court before which I was subject at the time, ended in 1997 without anyone applying for a further deferment, yet the "former" trustee, Graham Cockroachie kept illegally submitting Accounts of Intromission beyond that date, and outwith the time-bar date, and they were illegally audited by the knavish Accountant in Bankruptcy.  Despite my intensive protests, these crooked practices fell on the deaf ears of their corrupt, wig-lice accomplices in the courts.

Could these degenerate characters stoop any lower, you might well ask?  Bear with me, Sandy, my son, and you will discover that they are more crooked than probably even you would endorse.  Flying in the face of your own ruling at the commencement of the, mistermed, "Proof" hearing in Court 14 of the Court of Session on Thursday, 26 November 1998 - to the effect that the gravy train must stop careering out of control, with the bandwagon riders filching unlimited filthy lucre from the public purse with no prospect of that money ever being recovered - I received a letter from the Ernst & Young Gang, dated 15 March 2002, informing me that "the Accountant in Bankruptcy has examined and audited the account of intromission of J S S Graham as permanent trustee covering the period from 24 May 1999 to 23 November 2001.  The account closes with a balance of £10.00 due to the trustee.  The Accountant fixes the trustee's remuneration for the aforementioned period at £1,587.25 (exclusive of VAT) and outlays of £25,421.14."

This accounting period started six months after you made the ruling to wizen the dripping roast.  And it ended three years after your ruling.  It was also - for the fourteenth time – submitted and audited outwith the time-bar period prescribed by law.  However, in that ruling, you stated at paragraph 16 on page 10 of your Opinion, issued on 14 June 2000: "In my view it is in the public interest that sequestration should be brought to an end within a reasonable time and should not be allowed to drift on for an indeterminate period."  You must now be feeling very silly indeed on learning that your accomplices in the Crime Protection Syndicate, who you have been only too generous to in the past, have totally ignored your directive in court and have once again charged up the gravy train.  Who said there is honour among thieves?   This further illustrates that you presided over a pretentious show hearing in a kangaroo court.

Will you now prove to your colleagues and to the world that you are not quite as bad as these contemptible crooks and report them to the Crown Office or/and the Procurator Fiscal's Department to make them accountable for their fraudulent practices, and are not allowed to continue to be considered "citizens-above-suspicion" by our courts, similar to what the unaccountable members of the judiciary presently are?  You must stop them from filching "readies" from the public purse indefinitely?  I am athirst with expectation to learn the outcome of either your action or of your continued complicity.

I have reported this latest flaunting fraud of your henchmen to the Chief Constable Paddy Tomkins and to the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd, supplying them with prima-facie evidence to convict them both.  I have also advised them that I look forward to presenting that evidence to the criminal court to effect a conviction against them.   Since then, the Chief Constable and the Lord Advocate have advised me that the crime is not a crime at all; it is a civil matter (?).  This impelled me to direct my concentration on the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd.  I asked him how much someone in the white collar sector is allowed to steal before it constitutes a crime in the eyes of his [and your] Crime Protection Syndicate.  He has not yet clarified the matter, but it is obviously a great deal of money.  Criminal activity is obviously also pervasive throughout the white-collar sector judging by the amount of fraud and general criminality that are deemed "civil matters" by the extended Legal Profession's Crime Protection Syndicate.

One must assume that when people in jobs such as yours, cover up the crooked practices of others in the extended Legal Profession, it is because these reprobates are privy to information that could be used to implicate yourself, and therefore it makes them feel secure in the knowledge that you are unlikely to to that.  Frankly, it is the most archetypical form of "honour amongst thieves"!

On that note, crooked "Citizens-Above-Suspicion, like yourselves, can no longer expect to live outwith the law with impunity, totally unaccountable!  It would seem that the Scottish judiciary is more corrupt now than it was in mediaeval times.  Then - according to A Legal History of Scotland, Regius Professor of Law at the University of Glasgow - the Scottish Parliament sought repeatedly to insist on a reasonable standard of judicial duty.  He wrote: "In 1424, it [the Scottish Parliament] enjoined all judges, sheriffs, bailies, barons or spiritual judges to do full law and justice to poor and rich, without fraud or favour.  Judges refusing to administer the law fairly were to be punished rigorously.  Persons elected to judge causes and complaints were to take an oath to discharge their office without favour, odium, fraud or colour.   Sheriffs and others found negligent were to lose their office and be punished in person and goods.   Judges refusing to administer justice were to be punished, deprived of office and pay the complainer's expenses.  There were also many statutory provisions penalising judges who did not enforce particular provisions of the law.

"In default of skilled and, more importantly, upright judges, statutes provided that judges must not take bribes to delay justice under pain of loss of office, nor seek any part of the sum decerned for [decreed], and justices, sheriffs and other ministers must thole [endure] an assize [a trial by jury] as to compliance with their duties; if convicted of negligence or malversation [corrupt administration] they were to be punished.  Any one convicted of thrice giving false judgement was not to be heard again and could not act as procurator or advocate or stand in judgement until he was reconciled to the king."

It is interesting that in the Act of Union 1707 the legal profession sought to keep intact all the benefits of their trade and keep it separate from England.  Three hundred years later, they slipped similar safeguards into the Scotland Act.  The legal profession in Scotland have kept an iron grip on us fall for far too long.

When today's cowardly Scottish Executive fulfils the promises made by the former Justice Minister Jim Wallace QC, MSP, at the end of April 2001, perhaps we will see a revival of the Renaissance-type characteristics of accountability that once existed in our legal system. Conveniently, for you, Lords Philip and Johnston and Temporary Lord Ordinary Coutts, it disappeared around 500 years ago, leaving us with an outdated, monolithic, unaccountable, sanctimonious regime.  Jim Wallace has proposed that the exemption of Scots judges and sheriffs from being disciplined for "performance" and "behaviour" discrepancies was set to be removed because under the present system only two sheriffs have been dismissed in 30 years, while a Court of Session judge has never been removed from office.  I have named a few of them who most certainly should have been convicted of negligence and malversation and who ought to have been punished, not only under pain of loss of office, but also under loss of liberty and goods, and ordered to pay their victims compensation.  It is painful to face the reality that the public have had the ermine pulled over their eyes for all these centuries.  What satisfaction or fulfilment can anyone get from being party to such a system – other than through acquiring loads of pelf?  I hope you legal vultures have not promised Jim Wallace great riches and promotion within the Justiciary to change his mind!LINK  He has refused to declare whether or not he has taken the oath of 1st degree as an Entered Apprentice in Masonry.LINK  It must be assumed, therefore, that clandestine figures in the judiciary have "coaxed" Knaveheart Wallace - perhaps by threat of the cable tow (which sealed Roberto Calvi's fate below Blackfriars Bridge in London on Friday, 18 June 1982LINK) - to negotiate a bootlicking U-turn.  Not surprisingly, he has since run away from his job as Justice Minister.

It is now incumbent on you to reverse the injustices herein contained.  If you act on it now you might even begin to like yourselves.  I await your response, reasoned or otherwise, within a moderate time scale, and, in the meantime, I urge you to conform to the law and, more importantly, to justice.

Yours most sincerely

William Burns

PS
There's an inner thought in all your peers, do you know this thought, my friend?
It withstood the blows of a million years, and will do so till the end.
It lights the dark, it does not bend, it thunders forth its might,
It is the undauntable thought, my friend, the thought that says, "I'M RIGHT."

Illegal Poll Tax
Lord Johnston
T Gordon Coutts
T Gordon Coutts
Beware Authority
Lord Robert Reed

William Burns

Lord Philip
Lord Philip
by
Copyright © 2016 William Burns. All rights reserved.
From February 1, 2015 the liability to pay ‘Poll Tax’ arrears in Scotland will end, subject to final approval of the Scottish Parliament ...  John Swinney says "Holyrood has acted ‘to right a historic wrong'."
[Ed ~ As far back as 30 July 1988, before the poll tax came into force, I told the person responsible for enforcing it in the Lothians that it was illegal in Scotland.LINK]

Poll Tax