WHICH IS MORE BELIEVEABLE? FACT OR FICTION

One of the pleasures that I find most agreeable on a leisure based late summer holiday is abandoning the daily newspaper and most TV news programmes and taking unrushed minutes and/or hours to read books which have been lying on the table or desk just waiting for months and years to be opened.  Two such publications were hurriedly packed a couple of weeks ago; "Munich" by Robert Harris and the first offering from the "Secret Barrister" published in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Two such different forms of writing and topic that at first glance one would thought that there was nothing within their pages that could be compared. 

The novel I read in full and the outpourings of the cynical legal eagle are so far unread past pp107.  Those pages however included SB`s diatribe against magistrates and the system in which they operate.  Robert Harris is rightfully recognised as a master within his field.  His scholarly narrative is well constructed of what in his imagination lay behind the appearance and words of Neville Chamberlain on 30th September 1938 when Chamberlain's aeroplane landed at Heston Aerodrome and he spoke to the spectators there:

"The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine [shows paper to crowd]. Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you: " ... We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again".  

Harris`s acknowledgements occupy two and a half closely typed pages.  His fictional account of the momentous four days prior to that speech is masterful and credible unlike the bile that the SB vomits over 38pp in his vile and outrageous descriptions or depictions of what life is like for all those who use the magistrates courts i.e. witnesses and all those who fulfil their professional functions within that arena.  S/He reserves her/his  contemptuousness for lay magistrates by anonymous accounts of the ineptitude supposedly experienced in her/his presence.  I can honestly say that in my 17 years on a London bench  with c300 members when I retired nine years ago  the majority as a presiding magistrate or chairman in the old parlance,  I have never heard, seen or experienced such language, action or behaviour as s/he purports to be the norm.  Unlike Robert Harris, a world renown writer of wonderful fiction, the SB is using untested anecdote to undermine a whole justice system to vent what seems to be personal frustration and/or antagonism. There is no doubt that there are serious criticisms that can and should be attended to in the magistrates courts. Since the book`s publication these problems have intensified.  There is unquestionably an argument that magistrates courts should have a single government salaried District Judge presiding: that eg [as was my practice], all defendants found guilty at trial should be told and have literature given to them of the appeal system: that trials should be in front of DJ with two lay magistrate wingers as currently in appeals  before a crown court judge flanked by two magistrates.  Magistrate selection and training leave a lot to be desired.  But venomous castigation and atypical quotations and observations to suit her/his purpose are not the way to process a needed investigation.  Latest figures from the Ministry of Justice indicate that there is no current trend to have more courts with DJs presiding than is the case now. 

About 20 years ago there was an academic inquiry, the exact name and terms of which are now lost to me, which came to the conclusion that if District Judges forfeited their need for a legal advisor [they are of course their own legal advisor] the costs of their employment would be in touching distance of the then current costs of magistrates` expenses plus associated advisors` salaries.  Indeed it will, IMHO, be when or if such an inquiry showed conclusively that lay magistrates cost more than district judges  and only then. that there will emerge a valid argument that lay magistrates have had their day in court.  

The Secret Barrister should consider retiring from writing whilst s/he is ahead and concentrate in performing the duties for which s/he is presumably ably qualified. "Fake Law" and "The Memoir of an Unlikely Lawyer" are not on my future reading list.  However with the £millions already pocketed from sales of over 600,000 copies perhaps s/he will conclude that the law was merely a stepping stone to her/his true vocation following in the footsteps of many of her/his legal predecessors.  At least then lay magistrates could hold their heads level if not high as they continue to prop up a system decaying in front of all us all.  

PLAINTIFF`S FINANCIAL BACKERS TAINT CLAIM

We`re all travelers.  We might not be Dr Who or interstellar voyagers but we often go on business or pleasure from point A to point B and increasingly we use paid for public transport and not our owned, leased or hired cars, vans or bicycles. As travelers we have become inured to strikes and delays when traveling on roads, trains and aeroplanes.  For some of us delays cause no more than inconvenience but for others the minutes, hours and occasionally days lost to causes outwith our control can have more serious consequences.  And this is when we look to the companies involved to provide compensation for the consequences of their inability to provide the service(s) for which we, the customer, have paid.  Consumer pressure on governments has led to the labyrinthine requirements of claiming recompense from rail and airline companies to be brought under some control and authority.  Indeed some few years ago my first class ticket on an Edinburgh train to London on January 2nd was unusable owing to the service`s cancellation.  The next train was so over occupied I sat on my case for much of the journey.  However on the bright side I was pleasantly surprised to find a few days later that my fare had been refunded by Virgin Trains which leads me to an interesting case decided last week at the High Court.  In summary a case brought against British Airways for compensation was thrown out owing to the motives of those who had financially backed the claimant.  To quote the judge, "I would not allow the claim to go forward as a representative action because the dominant motive for it lies in the financial interests of its backers".

As a humble retired magistrate I find the judge`s reasoning bizarre.  Many ex wives of Russian oligarchs and other very very wealthy men have employed lawyers on a no win no fee basis.  Group actions in other matters have been undertaken on the basis of a winning legal firm taking a pre agreed share of a compensation award.  Perhaps this one will be next heard of if or when it`s taken to the Court of Appeal or even Supreme Court. 

As I`m soon away for a couple of weeks hoping to enjoy limited  solar radiation and an excessive calorific intake this site will not be updated with my meandering comments on matters quasi legal until the latter days of September unless of course I`m delayed by an airline strike or perhaps erupting volcanoes over Iceland

POLAND, LUTON AIRPORT AND LESSONS FOR UK FOR THOSE WHO LISTEN

Having just arrived home late last night from a trip to Poland for the wedding of a colleague of my wife the last thing on my mind has been to let my remaining brain cells put together a few hundred words here as I`ve been doing for eleven years.  But some difficult opinions are trying to escape.

The nuptial venue was the town of Znin situated half way between Warsaw and Berlin.  The hotel was converted from a late 19th century and laterally a Soviet era sugar beet factory where all forms of large machines have been left in situ.  Politically the town has been considered as part of Prussia, Poland and USSR.  It was destroyed exactly 85 years ago by the Nazi invasion and occupation when  hundreds of its citizens were murdered.  It seems that many workers and (Polish) guests were still existing in the Soviet era.  The facilities seemed to open and close at a whim and nobody wanted to take responsibility when any queries arose.  There were no TV programmes available in anything but Polish language, no newspapers, one only internal sign in English, not even that in German and most of the staff were monolingual.  Poznan airport seemed to have been designed with Polish citizens only in mind.  And now to my overlapping brain cells making a connection with the aforementioned to the experience on returning to Luton Airport.  

Restoring my phones`s link with the outside world  on landing there was a message that my son`s car had developed a battery problem and he would be unable to be there for pick up.  And so began the revelation that those functionaries in HI VIS jackets whose sole task for which I presume they are adequately rewarded is to answer the questions of travellers on arriving at perhaps a new destination with some degree of knowledge.  Speaking to the person at the onward travel area wrong information on costs of coach, train [and availability] taxis, Uber were offered.  At the coach stop waiting area the only four seats were occupied and, still in recovery from major surgery, the thought of standing unsupported for 40 minutes until the coach arrived was not a solution.  Further HI VIS advice was to take a coach to a train.  We were further taken on advice to the wrong train station.  There we were directed to the wrong platform for a train to Kings Cross. Just in time we were then told to change platforms as the service to Three Bridges was approaching.  Where in god`s name is Three Bridges?  Oh! that`s somewhere near Gatwick.  My point to another yellow jacketed person presumably an employee of Network Rail was why did the indicator board not specify that Kings Cross,  AKA St Pancras International, was a stop en route to somewhere miles south of the Thames.    

My opinion of Poles and Poland bearing in mind current events and the recent upheavals in that country over the last decade lead me to believe that there is a national insularity within the psyche of those responsible for the running of the state and those who are living in their own European crossroad where East and West have contested their homeland for centuries.  

And where is Britain on the spectrum of calm cool people ruled by calm cool government with workers of all sorts striving to do their best for those who pay them and for those they service?  Identity politics {Corbyn led} inspired in part by foreign machinations fanning flames of antisemitism which is of course denied by the fanners insofar as it`s "Zionists" who are the evil doers, is now beginning to establish a forum to further ruin any idea of Britishness  begun by the SNP and its Welsh counterpart.  The democratic Right of the Conservatives having apparently lost its ideological battle has flitted to what might be an embryonic fascist party in the making. Our justice system, a pillar on which our supposed democracy rests, has been demonstrated to be as fragile as the egos of those who sit in SW1.  A new Prime Minister who has pitifully demonstrated that all he learned at the Ministry of Justice is as naught when the judicial system must be an adjunct to this government`s version of its predecessor`s in its actions on public disorder ["crime"] and its deterrence.  

All the above is alive and kicking in Poland.  It is not inevitable that this country can escape the machinations and upheavals of Europe which over the centuries have led to ruin and sometimes resurrection for so many.  We were then united in being what we are; proud to be British and able to reject the stirrings of authoritarianism.  In 1656 Jews were allowed to settle in Britain, Britain was the first nation to abolish slave trading in 1807 and in 1918 the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 was passed, allowing women to be elected to Parliament although full suffrage was delayed until a decade later.  Post 1945 and the end of empire were the forces the ripples of which are still having their effects on how we live today.  The immigration of black people from the West Indies and african former colonies has generally been a social and industrial success.  The import of those whose first consideration is their adherence to a war conqueror and his visions of the 7th century has been anything but enhancement to a united society.  

We are where we are and have naught to blame but ourselves.  The Roman and other ancient empires went out more with a whimper than a bang.  Are our ears sensitive enough as a nation to steer us in the right direction that our children and their children will have a home known as UK?