CONFUSION OF THEIR LEGAL LORDSHIPS

Interrogatively the utterance “are we coming or going” can be considered as being written or said without anger or accusation but substitute “they” for “we” and the phrase takes on a definite meaning of lack of confidence in the activity in question. And thus just as a new chairman is appointed to lead the Sentencing Council with intentions to carry on the prescriptive actions of his predecessor The Lord Chief Justice informs us that he is, in line with the procedures of his political master, putting the subject of wearing the niqab in court to public consultation.


My simple mind finds these two activities by such senior authorities confusing in their juxtaposition. Just what topic should be affected by so called public debate and what should be so heavily ordered as to remove the last remnants of any wriggle room for sentencers? I have my own thoughts on the niqab but I am today interested only in the thought processes of those great and good in the legal world. They all now are eg chanting the mantra of the victim being at the centre of the justice system. Whatever happened to the concept of the state being the impartial arbiter of punishment to fit the crime? Is a victim with no family to be considered a factor in the sentencing of an arsonist cf a mother or brother with a sad victim statement? Because the former has nobody grieving should the offender be dealt with any differently from the other criminal? Stranger upon stranger crime is a two way affair; neither aggressor nor victim is involved with any consideration for anyone else. I presume the theory is that of “outcomes”. This principle it could be argued was laid to rest recently in the matter of the successful appeal in R v Hughes (Appellant). Mr Hughes had been convicted of two offences under the new section 3ZB, namely for causing the death of Mr Dickinson by dangerous driving at time when he was uninsured and without full driving licence  but exonerated from any blame as to his causing the accident..


The matter of the niqab in court should not be one for me or any of my colleagues to make however strongly opinionated we might be; it should be directed by the Lord Chief Justice in the interests of justice. When parliament is extremely unlikely to debate a return of capital punishment to consider that the public should have a collective opinion on wearing of a contentious cultural garb is dangerous for our already precarious regard for the democratic process and equality for all before the law.


It seems coalition government leads to following from behind. Equivocation rarely begets satisfactory results.