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JLMQ/MQ/AGCH.57 Please quote reference on all correspondence
Date: 17 April 2014 Mr G S Holmes c/o 12 DOUGLAS IM1 Dear Mr Holmes,
Not
Post-mark: 22 April 2014
Received: Wed. 23 April 2014
I have received your letters of 7 and 14 April 2014. I have carefully considered your letter of 7 April 2014, in particular its request that I correspond with the incumbent Attorney General of the United Kingdom relevant to a somewhat previous judicial decision in that jurisdiction. As is the case with any judicial decision, there are prescribed routes of appeal by which those decisions can be challenged and I do not consider it would be appropriate of me to take up matters in the manner you suggest. In so far as your letter of 7 April 2014 makes suggestions relevant to the conduct of family/child related proceedings, you may be aware that there is a Select Committee appointed on 10 December 2013 to consider and report to Tynwald by June 2014. That Select Committee arises as a consequence of a ‘picked-up’ Petition for Redress presented on Tynwald Day by Mr Philip Walmsley in 2013 seeking a review of the law relating to the care and upbringing of children, especially in cases of broken marriages and other relationships. The Clerk to that Committee is Mr Jonathan King, who sits in Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas. Details in relation to the Committee can be found within the Committees section of the www.tynwald.org.im website. In relation to your letter dated 14 April 2014, I firstly note the enclosure of the Order relating to the report of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council determining to refuse the application for permission to appeal. I note that the grounds were that the Judicial Committee on the grounds that your application did not raise an arguable point of law and was wholly without merit. I note you have submitted a further Petition of Right to Her Majesty. In that regard, I can only refer to previous communications sent by the Government Advocate and by me in relation to the availability and suitability of that course of action for your particular complaints, arising as they do from judicial proceedings and seeking damages as a remedy. Let me remind you that you have had numerous opportunities to litigate before the Counts of the Isle of Man which you have previously abandoned or which have been dismissed in their own right, prior to the position of the currently enforced restraint order restraining you from issuing further proceedings before the Count. In those circumstances, it is not my intention to enter into any correspondence again revisiting matters previously canvassed in litigation or by previous correspondence. Yours sincerely
J L M Quinn Acting Attorney General.