The BRB can and does have some lively discussion; one of the frequent causes of ribald hilarity, head scratching and pints being lost on hazard is Justice, how it may be obtained and how it can be effectively denied. Anyway – I wander.
During an interesting discussion (me railing against 'criminal' regulation) with a very learned, highly qualified member; the works of Evan Whitton were mentioned. He, noted the blanker than normal expression on my mug, gently, the learned friend promised to email a copy of the latest offering: Our corrupt legal system. Wow; now I'll be the first to admit my ignorance of the legal system, but this Whitton fellahin ain't, not by a long shot. After a few pages, I was hooked, only problem so far is not reading CASA into the text, when it's not there.
I asked P7 a.k.a.TOM to make the electronic version of the book available through their Zippy share what's it. Not everyone's idea of a good read, but to cherry pick it on a long, boring, wet Sunday is a worthwhile, amusing way to while away the odd hour or two.
OCL – Evan Whitton. ( Warning. Only click on the
Down Load Now button). Appetisers:-
Judge Harold Rothwax, of the New York State Supreme Court, wrote in Guilty: The Collapse of Criminal Justice (Random House, 1996): ‘Without truth there can be no justice.’
For present purposes, truth can be taken to mean the reality of what happened and is happening. This is what the ordinary person understands by the word, and the undoubted view of the general public is that the findings of a court, human error aside, represent the truth in this sense.
Justice Fox wrote:… in legal procedure the meaning which approximates most closely to it [justice] is ‘fairness’ … the public estimate must be correct, that justice marches with the truth. Only in this way does the concept present a moral face, as distinct from one where the winner is the person with the greatest resources and best advocacy. This is the view taken on the continent and in other countries, where the whole system of justice proceeds on the footing that the truth is to be ascertained. Hence the investigational, or inquisitorial, approach of the French, which even provides that, the true facts having been found by a judicial officer, their presentation is not to be polluted by the parties.’ [That is, by the parties’ lawyers.]
Nor are common lawyers concerned about the gulf between law and reality. The little girl who tumbled down the rabbit hole would find a common law trial almost as unreal as the trial of a knave for alleged tart theft which ends Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Macmillan, 1865). The judge, a cardboard figure, the King of Hearts, says from time to time: ‘Consider your verdict’. Not yet, his associate, a White Rabbit, gently advises. Like Lady Coleridge (see below, The judge as Humpty Dumpty), the judge’s wife sits on the bench. She frequently shouts: ‘Off with her head!’, and ‘Sentence first – verdict afterwards.’
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Fascinating stuff Oh learned friend, I shall continue – thank you....
