Letters / Still probing
Anyone who thinks that a single judge would pronounce a ‘judgement’ (as reported in last week’s Shetland Times) to the effect that Shetland is not part of Scotland, is living in cloud cuckoo land.
You need to delve a little deeper before you find that the so-called judgement was no such thing. It was an opinion.
The other side’s barrister sought a decree de plano, which in effect means that there are no facts in dispute (which of course there are).
This absolved Lord Pentland from the need to make a judgement, which would have forced him to consider all the facts.
However, it means that the matter of whether Shetland is actually part of Scotland has still not been tested in the courts.
The antics of the judiciary in this and my cases in the High Court and the Sheriff Court as they wriggle in their efforts to avoid confronting the issue only shows the weakness of their position.
I have been refused the right to appeal the verdicts in the Sheriff Court and have allegedly been declared bankrupt by a Sheriff Court that refused to hear evidence on its jurisdiction.
There has still been no legal determination of the question and the more they try to avoid the issue, the more they admit there is no evidence that either Scotland or the United Kingdom has any legitimate authority in Shetland.
While nobody in their right mind would expect the Scottish or UK governments to simply roll over and admit that Shetland is not part of Scotland when there is so much at stake, I have to admit that I allowed my hopes to be raised when Lord Pentland took over six weeks to come to his ‘opinion’.
The implications are huge and Shetland needs an answer as the Scottish and UK government’s scrap over Shetland’s resources in the run-up to the referendum on Scottish independence.
My research shows that, not only did Shetland not become part of Scotland, but that it never could have. It shows that every householder and landowner in Shetland is on a par with, or superior to the Queen here – not something the authorities would like you to know.
Do you sovereign people agree to the planning decision on the Viking industrial wind project being made in Scotland?
Do you agree to the Crown Estate charging rent for seabed they don’t own?
Do you agree to half the taxes you pay being used for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, funding the EU and other UK government pet projects?
Do you agree to decisions that affect you being made in Holyrood, Westminster and Brussels?
Do you agree to austerity measures imposed by the UK government to bail out greedy bankers?
Do you agree to the Bank of England diluting the value of the money in your pocket with so-called ‘quantitative easing’?
Shetland is prosperous at the moment. Do you want that prosperity to be sacrificed for mistakes that have nothing to do with us?
This is a long haul, but I’m getting closer to an answer – the latest round in the RBS case is just a step along the way. It is not up to me to tell Shetlanders what to do, but you need to know you have a choice and I will continue probing until I get an answer.
Stuart Hill
Ocraquoy and Forvik
www.forvik.com
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