We must continue to challenge in court the legality of Trident

AS one of the defendants mentioned in Brian Quail’s (February 23), I would like to correct one error that many people seem to make.

The Lord Advocates Reference (LAR) of 2001 was not empowered to overturn our acquittal. Our Greenock acquittal still stands. However, the lower courts, and even some of the peace movement, unfortunately have not understood that in fact the LAR could only look at the four legal points raised by the Crown after our acquittal.

It was a Reference not a simple appeal. It is important to note that there have been no properly constituted legal rulings on Trident in a UK court. The legality or otherwise of Trident has never been allowed to be heard in either Scottish or English courts. This is an ongoing struggle.

The Crown Prerogative is being interpreted as disallowing the courts to discuss the disposition of the armed forces. Therefore we have been stopped from arguing the illegality of Trident properly in a court.

So far we have only been able to get these arguments into our own defences to show our “beliefs”.

As the brave Sheriff Gimblett said of the Trident Three, “the three accused took the view that if it was illegal and given the horrendous nature of nuclear weapons that they had an obligation in terms of international law, never mind morally to do the little they could to stop the going about the deployment and use of nuclear weapons in a situation which could be construed as a threat”.

It is imperative that Trident Ploughshares (a civil resistance organisation based on international law) and all those struggling for peace and justice, continue to challenge the Crown Prerogative. No democracy worth its name should allow the armed forces to engage in illegal and criminal activities and we all have a right to contest those criminal policies in a court of law.

If all the facts about Trident, its deployment and likely targets could be heard in a court then no legal system with integrity could help but find them illegal and criminal. Even the Greenock acquittal did not directly rule on Trident. It ruled that we were within our rights, because of our beliefs that seemed reasonable given the facts and circumstances we presented, to try to prevent breaches of international law. We should not underestimate the victory we secured in Greenock nor should we forget that the state is scared of actually putting Trident on trial.

We are now working on multiple approaches to local courts to see if we can find another brave sheriff or magistrate to actually indict the Government. But we need help from lawyers and researchers to get the strongest possible case prepared and then it will be rolled out all over the UK for groups to challenge their own local courts. Angie Zelter, 6 Church Street, Knighton, Powys.