“When Justice System Speaks Latin: A Public Record Notice on Access and Clarity” By Michael P Lennon jr
The file you linked is the first issue (Volume 1, No. 1) of The Arbitration Journal, published in January 1937 by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) Nailed it!
Michael P. Lennon Jr.
72 Mullaghboy Road
Bellaghy
County Londonderry
Northern Ireland
Date: [March 2026]
To:
Permanent Secretary
Department of Justice Northern Ireland
Castle Buildings
Stormont Estate
Belfast
Subject: Formal Complaint – Failure of Support Structures for Personal Litigants
Dear Sir or Madam,
I write to formally place on record a complaint regarding the structural position in which personal litigants are placed within the Northern Ireland justice system, and the practical consequences that arise from it.
Recently I was provided with the attached guidance issued by the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service titled “Guidance on what NICTS staff can and cannot do for Personal Litigants.”
The document states clearly that court staff cannot provide legal advice, cannot recommend a course of action, cannot advise on whether proceedings should be issued, cannot comment on the likely outcome of a case, and cannot advise what should be said in court or during a tribunal hearing.
In practice, this leaves personal litigants in an extremely difficult position.
The guidance acknowledges that litigation is complex and recommends seeking legal advice. However, the same system recognises that a significant number of individuals appear before courts without representation. In those circumstances, the system effectively confirms that the only people available within the court building are prohibited from offering the guidance that a reasonable person might assume is available.
This creates a structural gap.
A person may be navigating legal proceedings that carry significant consequences, yet the institutional environment surrounding them is legally constrained from providing even basic directional assistance beyond procedural signposting.
In effect, individuals can find themselves present within a court system while being expected to operate within it without meaningful support unless they can independently secure professional representation.
This issue becomes particularly serious where the litigant is already vulnerable or experiencing circumstances that may have contributed to their involvement with the justice system in the first place.
The leaflet itself implicitly recognises this difficulty by directing individuals toward external advice organisations such as Citizens Advice, Advice NI, Housing Rights and the Law Society. While these organisations provide valuable services, they operate outside the justice system itself and often have limited capacity.
The result is a situation where individuals can be procedurally inside the justice system while substantively outside its support structures.
I do not raise this matter as a criticism of NICTS staff. On the contrary, the guidance makes clear that staff are acting within the restrictions placed upon them. My concern is therefore not directed at individuals, but at the structural framework that governs what assistance can be provided.
A justice system should be accessible in practice, not merely in theory.
Where increasing numbers of individuals appear before courts without legal representation, it becomes necessary to examine whether the current structural arrangements adequately support the fair and effective administration of justice.
My request is straightforward.
I ask that the Department of Justice review the practical consequences of the current guidance and consider whether additional institutional support mechanisms should exist for personal litigants who are navigating court procedures without legal representation.
The purpose of this correspondence is not to seek a personal remedy, nor do I require a response. Rather, I consider it appropriate that this structural issue is formally recorded and brought to the attention of the Department responsible for oversight of the justice system.
The administration of justice depends not only on rules, but on accessibility and fairness for those required to operate within them.
Respectfully,
Michael P. Lennon Jr.
www.mindspireblogs.co.uk
Mindspire Experience is the practical starting point. It is where lived experience is observed, recorded, and reflected upon without clinical labels or institutional filtering. The purpose is simple: to understand what people actually experience during and after crisis, not what systems assume they experience. By listening carefully and documenting reality in plain language, Mindspire creates a grounded foundation of human insight that institutions can learn from rather than speculate about.
The Universal Insight Instrument
The Universal Insight Instrument is the structural framework that transforms lived experience into anonymised, population-level insight. It does not diagnose, treat, or intervene in individual lives. Instead, it identifies patterns that emerge across many experiences, allowing institutions, policymakers, and service designers to see where systems succeed and where they fail. In simple terms, Mindspire gathers the signal, and the Universal Insight Instrument turns that signal into clear, ethical insight capable of informing better governance and public policy.
Weather for Bellaghy, Mid Ulster, United Kingdom:
Current Conditions: Sunny, 43°F (6°C)
Daily Forecast:
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o1o ☀️
Non-fiction AI for fact-checking. Lived experience is testimony, not liability.
A Personal Note on Life, Truth, and Simplicity
By Michael P. Lennon
I have a very simple philosophy about life. It didn’t come from university, books, or some grand theory. It came from experience. From watching people, from working with families at the hardest moments of their lives, and from learning—sometimes the hard way—what actually matters and what doesn’t.
The one thing that truly drives me is honesty.
Let me be clear about something from the start. I’m not saying that because I’m perfect. I’m not saying it because I’ve always been honest. I certainly haven’t. And I’m not saying it because I think I’m better than anyone else. I’m not. I’m also not saying it because I’m highly educated, because I’m not. My education came mostly from life itself—from work, from mistakes, and from watching how people behave when pressure arrives.
But after all of that, I’ve reached a very simple conclusion.
Every person in life has a choice.
We can make things complicated for everyone around us—including ourselves—or we can keep things straightforward. Plain. Honest. No fuss. No jargon. No theatre.
Most trouble in the world begins when people start pretending. Pretending to know more than they do. Pretending to be more important than they are. Pretending systems work when they clearly don’t.
The truth itself is rarely complicated.
People are the ones who make it complicated.
Working in environments where death is a reality gives you a perspective that many people don’t encounter until much later in life. When you see the end of the road often enough, illusions fall away very quickly.
No matter who you are, what job you had, how much money you made, or how important you believed yourself to be, the ending is the same for all of us.
None of us leave this world carrying our possessions.
We don’t take our houses.
We don’t take our bank accounts.
We don’t take titles, status, or influence.
In the end, we leave with nothing.
A simple box. A small piece of ground. And the memories people hold about how we behaved while we were here.
That reality should make life simpler.
But the modern world seems determined to move in the opposite direction.
Everything is faster.
Everything is louder.
Everything is more complicated.
Technology has put the entire planet at our fingertips. I can send a message across the world in seconds. Information moves faster than thought itself.
And yet somehow, despite all of that, life feels more confused than ever.
Prices have never been higher. People have never been moving faster. Expectations have never been greater. Yet many people feel more lost than they ever did before.
We were promised that technology would make life easier.
In many ways, it has done the opposite.
It has created noise. Endless noise. Opinions, arguments, outrage, confusion—arriving twenty-four hours a day.
It has also created something else many people don’t fully understand.
Data.
Data has become the new form of wealth. The modern equivalent of gold.
Every time someone clicks “accept cookies,” signs a privacy policy they haven’t read, or joins a platform they don’t understand, they are often handing over something valuable without realising it.
I’m not saying technology is bad. It isn’t. Used properly, it’s an incredible tool.
But tools should serve people.
They should never control them.
One thing that bothers me about modern systems is the language they use. Endless jargon. Legal paragraphs nobody reads. Policies written in ways that almost seem designed to confuse people rather than inform them.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
If I want to create a website, I can do it with nothing more complicated than a document and a clear idea. I don’t need to track people across the internet. I don’t need to harvest their behaviour. I don’t need to turn their personal information into a commodity.
What people deserve is clarity.
If a company collects data, it should say so plainly. If a platform uses cookies, the people operating that platform should understand exactly what those cookies do and why they exist.
Transparency should not be optional.
Right now the reality is that many people operating these systems don’t fully understand them themselves.
And when something goes wrong—when someone tries to report a cyber breach or misuse—another problem appears.
The system meant to help often doesn’t know how to respond.
Police services are under pressure. Resources are limited. Cybercrime grows faster than the systems built to deal with it.
That leaves ordinary people stuck in the middle of a system that struggles to keep up.
This is one of the reasons I began developing the ideas behind Mindspire.
Mindspire, at its core, is not meant to be complicated.
It is the opposite of complicated.
It exists to cut through the fog.
No jargon.
No sludge.
No marketing nonsense.
Just clear thinking and plain truth.
It will only ever be as strong as the people who contribute to it. It is not designed to collect personal data, manipulate behaviour, or exploit users. In fact, it is built around the opposite principle: that lived experience, honesty, and shared understanding have real value.
But there is one rule.
Facts matter.
Honesty matters.
And simplicity matters.
Life is already complicated enough without people deliberately making it worse.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that the best approach to life is also the simplest.
Slow down.
Tell the truth.
Treat people with respect.
And remember that nobody—not one of us—knows what tomorrow will bring.
Someone who feels untouchable today may be the person taking their shoes off for the last time tomorrow.
That reality is not meant to frighten anyone.
If anything, it should bring perspective.
We do not own this world.
We are caretakers for a short time.
What matters is what we do with that time—how we treat people, how honest we are, and how clearly we speak.
Everything else is temporary.
And if there is one message I hope people take from my experience, it is this:
Life does not need to be complicated to be meaningful.
Sometimes the most powerful thing a person can do is simply tell the truth, speak plainly, and refuse to add to the noise.
That is the philosophy I try to live by.
Not because it makes me special.
But because, in the end, it makes life easier for everyone.
— Michael P. Lennon
O Lord, Support us all the day long,
Until the shadows lengthen and the
evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed,
and the fever of life is over
and our work is done.
Then, Lord, in your mercy
grant us a safe lodging,
a holy rest, and peace at the last,
through Christ Jesus, our Lord.
@stmichalHM EST- 1984.
Amen.
