MS PATRICIA ANN MALLABY, CO-ORDINATOR
WOMEN’S LAND REFORM GROUP
C/o A.L.P. ASSOCIATION
184 DALRY ROAD
EDINBURGH, EH11 2EP
SCOTLAND, UNITED KINGDOM

I am a British citizen, an organic farmer, and co-ordinator of the Women’s Land Reform Group. The Group was formed to protect women’s land rights: the judiciary’s systematic dispossession of women farmers (on partnership dissolution), to conform with the Establishment’s policy of male ownership and control of land, is a violation of our human rights. Our complaints have not been addressed at the House of Lords or the House of Commons; consequently the UK justice system is in a state of chaos, through legal uncertainty.

The Women’s Land Reform Group seeks:

1. a declaration that the UK’s policy on landownership and male succession is discriminatory, unfair to women, harmful to children, incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998, breaches the European Convention on Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
2. the right to use commercial law to resolve commercial matters, regardless of marital status.
3. an end to the legal exploitation of children for commercial advantage, under matrimonial law.
4. the abolition of matrimonial legislation which confers power on the judiciary to dispossess women by enforced property transfer of land and business – which the Government states is incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998 (property rights, peaceful enjoyment of possessions.
5. The right of repossession and compensation, if dispossession occurred after the Human Rights Act.
6. The UK’s ratification of Protocol 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights (including Article 5 – equality between spouses).

and requests the European Parliament to ensure that the UK Government acts on its declared intentions, as indicated in the 1998 Parliamentary Report ‘Rights Brought Home: the Human Rights Act’:

4.14 Protocol 7 contains a prohibition on the expulsion of aliens without a decision in accordance with the law or opportunities for review; a right to a review of conviction or sentence after criminal conviction; a right to compensation following a miscarriage of justice; a prohibition on double jeopardy in criminal cases; and a right to equality between spouses. These rights reflect similar rights protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

4.15 In general, the provisions of Protocol 7 reflect principles already inherent in our law. In view of concerns in some of these areas in recent years, the Government believes that it would be particularly helpful to give these important principles the same legal status as other rights in the Convention by ratifying and incorporating Protocol 7. There is, however, a difficulty with this because a few provisions of our domestic law, for example in relation to the property rights of spouses, could not be interpreted in a way which is compatible with Protocol 7. The Government intends to legislate to remove these inconsistencies, when a suitable opportunity arises, and then to sign and ratify the Protocol.