The Rights of Small Shareholders

By Roger Lawson, UKSA and Northern Rock Shareholders Action Group


I happened to be reading the "Rights of Man" by Thomas Paine over Christmas - have been catching up on some of my reading. For those who are not familiar with him, he was very involved in both the American and French revolutions in the late 1700s and was an influential writer on the issues then being debated.



One chapter of the book reports on the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens" adopted by the French National Assembly just before the revolution. Clause "XVII" reads: "The right of property being inviolable and sacred, no one might be deprived of it, except in cases of evident public necessity, legally ascertained, and on condition of a previous just indemnity".



We are still looking for a "just indemnity" and it is questionable whether there was any "evident public necessity" for the nationalisation.While countries such as France established the constitutional right for citizens not to have their property confiscated many years ago, because the UK has no constitution the ruling Government party can pass a law that confiscates property without compensation, and it cannot be challenged in practice because UK judges will not overturn Acts of Parliament. Our only way of challenging it is by going to the European Courts - which will clearly take many years and much expense.