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Post by TonyDunkley on Jul 22, 2017 21:40:46 GMT
Let's just sit back and wait to see how they try to squirm out of the follow-up FoI Request that Allan sent yesterday. C&RT can only get away with doing as they like if we allow them to do so, . . . . wearing them down bit by bit is the way to go. We need as many folk as possible flatly refusing to agree to the T&C's when renewing Licences and PBC's so as to force C&RT to either admit defeat by shutting-up about their ultra vires T&C's, or run a series of easily sabotaged, no-hope Section 8/Part 8 County Court claims that they are forced to discontinue via pre-trial compliance with their unlawful demands. Repeated frequently enough, the costly futility of it all, would eventually make even the most dedicated and fanatical members of Parry's 'einsatzgruppen' come to regard it as a waste of time, effort and money. If they can be goaded into initiating a number of, to all intents and purposes, identical and equally pointless actions that ultimately go nowhere for the same reasons, then the spectre of the Trust, and it's Trustees, being branded as vexatious litigants, would also begin to enter their reckoning. That depends on an organised number of boaters all acting in unison, a number more than CaRT can afford to bully, and with a good legal backup to defend themselves in court. The implications for CaRT loosing that battle would be all their licencing and enforcement present and future plans would be trashed, I would think loosing would not be an option for them. You have misunderstood the proposed tactics. What I'm suggesting is turning the inherent weaknesses in all of C&RT contrived actions to the intended victim's advantage by way of sabotaging and wrecking C&RT's case immediately pre-trial.
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Post by NigelMoore on Jul 22, 2017 22:13:14 GMT
Of course, the tactic could not possibly work against the legitimate procedures for boats without relevant consents where required. No matter that you decided to buy a licence or certificate after all, pre-trial, you would still have been guilty of the relevant offence and could be legitimately prosecuted for it. One wonders when/if they will ever wake up to that?
Perhaps a caveat should be added to your advice Tony - the possibility, however faint, is that the tactic could succeed, in forcing them into a Magistrate's Court.
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Post by TonyDunkley on Jul 23, 2017 10:41:50 GMT
Of course, the tactic could not possibly work against the legitimate procedures for boats without relevant consents where required. No matter that you decided to buy a licence or certificate after all, pre-trial, you would still have been guilty of the relevant offence and could be legitimately prosecuted for it. One wonders when/if they will ever wake up to that?Perhaps a caveat should be added to your advice Tony - the possibility, however faint, is that the tactic could succeed, in forcing them into a Magistrate's Court. Quite so ! . . . , it is in fact almost inconceivable that this hasn't already dawned on them. However, one can understand the continuing use of successful, albeit contrived and vulnerable, methods for as long as they remain effective, and in circumstances where the Trust's conduct, and rationale, in bringing an action would not stand up to detailed scrutiny by the fair-minded and reasonably intelligent. I think that faced with a choice between quietly letting drop their insistence on written agreement to their T&C's as a pre-condition to the issuing of a PBL/PBC, or, prosecuting a boater in a Magistrate's Court for not having something which they are obliged to issue but had unlawfully declined so to do, C&RT would be highly unlikely to proceed. Should they do so, of course, they would have something of a mountain to climb in persuading the Bench that a 'licence' issuing authority can refuse to issue 'licences' on a whim, whilst operating within it's own peculiar framework of laws and stipulations that have never been agreed by Parliament.
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Post by tadworth on Jul 23, 2017 14:58:06 GMT
Surely the complex legal issues would be far over the head of a magistrate, no law qualifications are needed for the job, they wouldn't want to get involved in complex legal cases.
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Post by TonyDunkley on Jul 23, 2017 16:16:55 GMT
Surely the complex legal issues would be far over the head of a magistrate, no law qualifications are needed for the job, they wouldn't want to get involved in complex legal cases. This is the whole point ! . . . , there would not be any complex legal issues if C&RT were forced down the legally correct route of prosecuting Byelaw and statutory offences in the Magistrates Courts. To succeed they would have to demonstrate, and prove to the satisfaction of the Bench, that the accused boater had committed a specific criminal offence created under either the 1976 General Canal Byelaws or under any of the relevant waterways legislation, none of which, of course, prescribes the revoking/refusing of PBL/PBC's as an applicable penalty.
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Post by tadworth on Jul 24, 2017 12:38:06 GMT
I would like to see what happens when someone sues CaRT for breach of the licence contract which CaRT insists is a legally binding contract, will they then have to deny it is a contract ?
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Post by IainS on Jul 24, 2017 21:24:52 GMT
It is very difficult to see any way in which a licence holder would have any grounds to sue CaRT.
All they've got to do is "our best".
A very one sided contract!
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Post by NigelMoore on Jul 24, 2017 21:33:05 GMT
It is very difficult to see any way in which a licence holder would have any grounds to sue CaRT. All they've got to do is "our best". A very one sided contract! They wouldn't even have to do their 'best'; the only obligation on their part is to give the licence. If one wished to sue for specific performance, it could only be upon their accepting your money and assurance of obedience, yet failing to issue the licence. If they have simply refused the licence and your money, they have not entered into any 'contract'.
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Post by IainS on Jul 26, 2017 11:49:57 GMT
Can't disagree with that! My comment was in reply to Tadworth waiting for CaR T to be sued for breach of the licence "contract".
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Post by NigelMoore on Jul 26, 2017 13:57:06 GMT
Can't disagree with that! My comment was in reply to Tadworth waiting for CaR T to be sued for breach of the licence "contract". That is what I understood. Thinking about it, the closest anyone could have come to that situation was Andy Wingfield, where they kept his money having revoked his licence, and kept the renewal fee also, if I recall correctly, holding it "to his account" or some such thing, while still refusing to issue it, and s.8'ing him. Talk about having it all ways!
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Post by kris on Jul 26, 2017 16:05:08 GMT
Can't disagree with that! My comment was in reply to Tadworth waiting for CaR T to be sued for breach of the licence "contract". That is what I understood. Thinking about it, the closest anyone could have come to that situation was Andy Wingfield, where they kept his money having revoked his licence, and kept the renewal fee also, if I recall correctly, holding it "to his account" or some such thing, while still refusing to issue it, and s.8'ing him. Talk about having it all ways! Unfortunately having it all ways, is exactly what crt intend to do it seems. I take my hat off to you Nigel for all the obvious work you put into helping Leigh and other boaters. I couldn't cope with the amount of reading matter.
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Post by tadworth on Jul 26, 2017 17:55:39 GMT
"Duress in the context of contract law is a common law defence brought about when one of the parties to the contract enjoyed an ascendant position in relation to the other party and abused that position by subjecting the other to threats. A party who has entered into a contract under duress is entitled to rescind or set aside the contract, rendering it voidable (in equity)."
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