Dear Sir or Madam,

By way of explanation for this request under FOI legislation the
following is the text of a letter recently sent to the Ministry of
Justice, London. They didn't respond to the writer. The Northern
Ireland Office, amongst others, were consulted in 2002/3 without
useful response: The matter has not been resolved

I would appreciate disclosure of any documentation on the issue
that the Northern Ireland Office has

----------- copy text:

The Clerk of the Court Newry Court House 23 New Street BT35 6JD 3rd
January 2008

Dear Sir/Madam

Private Criminal Prosecution

During 2003 the undersigned made various attempts to convince the
court registry that any citizen may commence a criminal prosecution
but the Registry were adamant that only the Police could do so

Correspondence to the Lord Chancellors Office/Court Service/others
failed to achieve anything

A request to be put in front of a Judge of the Court was declined

Grainne Campbell was the person dealing with the issue

I do not know if Ms Campbell is still the person in charge, if so
please excuse me not addressing this letter direct

Will you please confirm whether the policy of the Court is still to
refuse to process private criminal prosecutions

D A Schiller --------

Sincerely D A Schiller

Dear Mr Schiller,

Please see attached letter.

Kind Regards,

NIO FOI Team

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Dear Mr Schiller,

Please see attached letter.

Kind Regards,

NIO FOI Team

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Dear FOI Team, Thank you for your attention in this matter: I have
done as you suggest. Perhaps, as the Northern Ireland Office and
bearing in mind the matter I have raised, you may also wish to
check that the local courts are implementing the law of the land
correctly?

Regards, David Schiller

Dear FOI Team,

I refer to my request and your response that "we have searched our
records and have established that we do not hold any information
relating to your request"

I realise that my request was about the Newry court and perhaps I
should have been less specific. Perhaps I could ask you to check
any information/documentation you may have in relation to what
follows? (If you would prefer I will make a separate request and/or
copy the correspondence referred to, to you)

According to my records the Lord Chancellor's Department
'transferred' a letter I had sent to the PM (Blair) and which he
had transferred to them, to you!! The letter to Tony Blair was
dated the 20th February 2003 and that from the LC dept. to your
office would have been the 25th (or thereabouts) March 2003 (their
ref: 61801-1)

I do not think you you responded to the issue originally raised
with the PM or contacted me on the issue and I would appreciate if
you could check whether you took any action?

It is appreciated that the actual issue was probably not one
appropriate to your office but since the LC dept chose to deal with
it as they did, I have to check with you.

Regards, David Schiller

Dear Mr Schiller

We have checked our records and can confirm from our registers that we
received a copy of your letter to the Prime Minister in February 2003.
The detailed papers have since been destroyed in accordance with our
disposal practices, but from the fact that no case file was set up I
think it is most likely that we would have passed the letter back to the
Lord Chancellor's Department indicating that we did not have
responsibility for courts in Northern Ireland.

Regards

FOI team

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