Census case against Quakers dropped
Cases dropped against John Voysey and John Marjoram
The case against two Quakers who boycotted last year’s census because it was run by an arms company has been dramatically dropped by prosecutors. John Marjoram of Stroud Meeting and John Voysey of Ludlow Meeting were both prepared to go to prison rather than pay a fine.
‘I am disappointed not to have been given the opportunity to give evidence in my defence and to ask some pertinent questions,’ said John Marjoram, who is mayor of Stroud and a Green Party councillor.
John Voysey said he could ‘only speculate’ on why the cases had been dropped. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had earlier insisted that the prosecutions were in the public interest. John Marjoram says that their attitude changed when his lawyer informed them of the defence that he planned to put forward.
Campaigners have suggested that the authorities want to avoid appeals to higher courts that would consider controversial issues of human rights.
John Voysey told the Friend that he was planning to base his case on Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion. He said that his boycott had been motivated by the same principles that led him to become a conscientious objector to military service in 1947.
He added: ‘The reality is that the last thing the CPS wanted was for the issue to be tested in a High Court rather than a Magistrates’ Court on the issue of human rights. If we had won the case, then it would have thrown the census
per se into dispute.’
Many people boycotted the census because the contract for administering it in England and Wales was awarded to multinational arms firm Lockheed Martin.
The Office for National Statistics confirmed earlier this year that they were pursuing prosecutions against about 400 people who had not completed the census. At least 120 have been convicted (see ‘Census convictions’, 3 February).
John Marjoram warned against assuming that all cases would now be dropped. He pointed out that veteran Bristol peace activist Roger Franklin was found guilty under the Census Act in February.
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