Legal Drama.

I can confirm that Senior Judge Lush at the Court of Protection (COP) has been drinking again. He's sent out another order of direction which was the delivered in the form of a single copy addressed to both me and my father in order to cause maximum distress.

The first part orders that if either party wishes to submit further evidence they should do so on the appropriate COP24 form 16:00 on Friday October 19th 2010. This should be viewed as a final attempt by the Court to encourage me to broaden the scope of the case by going into some rant about my grandmother's medical treatment.

Secondly it orders that an oral hearing shall take place at the COP on Wednesday November 3rd at 14:00 with an expected duration of two hours. This is an indication that the Brits have lost their nerve about holding a hearing during the COP16 Summit. Instead they've timed the hearing to coincide with my brother's visit to Germany. The purpose of that visit is to belatedly appease the Germans over my brother's summer trip to India and China. By throwing the COP hearing into the mix they're trying to dress it up as an extra apology.

In response I'll just draw the Judges attention to the fact that because the case is purely based on a point of law an oral hearing is most unorthodox. In this case it is especially inappropriate because it will deprive an elderly and vulnerable person of care and supervision for a period of up to six hours. I will then suggest that if the Judge feels he needs to speak to the parties in the case it would be better for the court to assign a special visitor. This will have the added advantage of allowing them to also speak to my grandmother.

Elsewhere I've been reading up on the UK Supreme Court. The two things I've learnt is that it is very new and only rules on the most complex issues of civil law. Therefore it's only handed down about 60 rulings since it's inception in October 2009. I've read every single one of those rulings and not one of them has any relevance to the case in front of Croydon Magistrates Court yesterday. I have also received a copy of the Judgement from the Court in that case and it reads simply: "We write to confirm that the court dismissed the case and awarded no costs." That would indicate that they can't cite precedent either. This goes along with my impression of a lay Magistrate being confused by a man in a shiny suit.

Of course that man in the shiny suit could have mistakenly referenced the Supreme Court when he meant it's predecessor the Law Lords. However at the time of writing it would appear that not only was the case thrown out on a legal technicality it was thrown out on a legal technicality that doesn't even exist.