Geoffrey Robertson's Blog, page 2
June 1, 2018
Here’s another Jeremy Thorpe scandal – its chilling legacy in law | Geoffrey Robertson
As the BBC TV dramatisation of the Thorpe scandal reaches its denouement this Sunday, millions will ask: why was Jeremy Thorpe acquitted of conspiring to kill Norman Scott? Because the judge was biased in his favour; because of the skill of his barrister, George Carman; or because he was innocent?
None of the above. He was acquitted because of the dirtiest deal in media history, made by a rightwing newspaper. The significance of this deal was revealed by a jury member in the New Statesman, which was then itself prosecuted by the Thatcher government for contempt of court. The magazine’s victory for free speech was reversed when that government passed a law that today remains the only legacy of the Thorpe trial: creating the very British crime of refusing to cover up wrongdoing, at least when it takes place in the jury room. That, along with the verve and panache of the TV show, should now be central to our debate.
Related: A Very English Scandal review: funny and confident – like Jeremy Thorpe
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March 23, 2018
Tim Winton, Geoffrey Robertson and Cynthia Banham on what they're reading in March
Our monthly Australian books column also features highlights from Kitty Flanagan, Ceridwen Dovey, Robert Manne and more
Related: Ceridwen Dovey: 'When you take up your pen, you’re taking up a position of power'
Continue reading...November 19, 2017
Sir Ninian Stephen obituary
Judge who pipped Prince Charles to become governor general of Australia in the 1980s, then sat on the UN international criminal court’s first trial
Among the many signal achievements of the British-born Australian judge Sir Ninian Stephen, who has died aged 94, two stand out. As governor general of Australia in the 1980s he dispelled the suspicion that the office could not work harmoniously with a Labor government. Then, as a judge at the first trial in a new court in The Hague, of a Serbian war criminal, he did much to demonstrate that international criminal law, 50 years after Nuremberg, could deliver justice fairly and authoritatively.
When Sir Zelman Cowen’s term as governor general ended in 1982, Buckingham Palace scented an opportunity to find a job for Prince Charles, and lobbied hard for his appointment. The Labor party blocked this colonialist initiative, and Malcolm Fraser, Australia’s conservative prime minister since his predecessor Gough Whitlam’s controversial dismissal by the then governor general, Sir John Kerr, in 1975, elevated Stephen from the high court instead.
Related: Court fight to release secret 'palace' letters about Gough Whitlam dismissal
Continue reading...November 13, 2017
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington obituary
Celebrated criminal barrister who defended Christine Keeler, George Blake and Howard Marks, and played a key role in the Lady Chatterley trial
For a quarter of a century, from 1960 until 1985, Jeremy Hutchinson, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, who has died aged 102, was the finest silk in practice at the criminal bar. He defended Lady Chatterley, Fanny Hill and Christine Keeler (Keeler in the flesh), the atom spy George Blake, and then Brian Roberts, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, and later the journalist Duncan Campbell in two cases that led to reform of the Official Secrets Act. In the “ABC” case (in which Campbell was “C”), he exposed the secret service “vetting” used to debar leftwingers from political trial juries.
He performed a small miracle in achieving the acquittal of Howard Marks, guilty (by Marks’s later account) of trafficking drugs. He added a service to the arts by ending the cultural vandalism of Mary Whitehouse, whose attempt in 1982 to prosecute the National Theatre for staging Howard Brenton’s The Romans in Britain collapsed after his (and the Old Bailey’s) most remarkable cross-examination.
Continue reading...October 22, 2017
Cherif Bassiouni obituary
The Egyptian law professor Cherif Bassiouni, who has died aged 79, made an important contribution to the struggle for global justice and to the revival of the Nuremberg legacy. His work, both academic and in his UN reports from war zones, led to the creation of two international criminal courts.
In 1992, he was appointed by the UN to chair a commission of experts to examine war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. His report delivered a searing verdict on the behaviour of all parties to the Balkan wars, but especially on the Serbs under Slobodan Milošević. It argued, in a novel development of the law of war, that through using rape as an instrument of ethnic cleansing, the Serb commanders were guilty of a crime against humanity.
Continue reading...April 4, 2017
Let’s do a Brexit deal with the Parthenon marbles | Geoffrey Robertson
Not yet a week since the triggering of article 50, and already hope of cordial negotiations seems optimistic. At the weekend, amid early jostling over the post-Brexit fate of Gibraltar, former Tory leader Michael Howard implied that one way to resolve that situation could be a war with Spain.
Related: British Museum even more vital after Brexit, says Hartwig Fischer
Continue reading...February 2, 2017
Sir Nigel Rodley obituary
Few lawyers have devoted more of their lives to human rights than Sir Nigel Rodley, who has died aged 75. His work ranged over a wide field but focused particularly on defining the rules against torture and devising means to enforce them.
He was Amnesty International’s first legal officer, starting in the early 1970s, when the charity had to be content with writing grovelling letters to torturers, begging them to desist. By the time he left, 17 years later, it had the legal tools to put them in jail. Chief of these was the UN convention against torture, which Nigel helped to draft and which later tripped up the Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. He led Amnesty’s campaign for the UN to establish a special rapporteur on torture – a role that he filled with great distinction from 1993 to 2001. His work was mainly behind the scenes and did not involve courtroom battles or outspoken advocacy; he was really a human rights diplomat.
Continue reading...January 25, 2017
Only parliament can trigger Brexit. But can it then reverse the process? | Geoffrey Robertson
The supreme court decision was predictable, but momentous nonetheless – a reaffirmation of the result of the Civil War, namely that parliamentary sovereignty trumps executive power, whether the executive is the king or Theresa May and her cabinet. Article 50 cannot be accessed other than by a statute passed by parliament, which repeals the 1972 European Communities Act. Parliament took us into Europe, and only parliament can take us out.
The bad news for May is that this means her “great repeal bill” must be a fully-fledged piece of legislation: its length may be short, but its time of passage will not, if MPs do their duty and discuss it, both in the House of Commons and in committee, and peers debate it in the Lords and make use of their power to remit and delay.
Related: Brexit: rebel Tories demand more say on Brexit as May loses supreme court fight
Might a coalition – now, or in some future parliament – reverse Brexit?
Continue reading...September 4, 2016
Richard Neville obituary
Co-founder and editor of the 60s counterculture magazine Oz, Richard Neville, dies aged 74
In early 1963, Richard Neville, who has died aged 74, gathered together a band of fellow students at his parents’ home in suburban Sydney to put together a satirical magazine. Along with Richard Walsh, the artist Martin Sharp and others, Neville created Oz, a 16-page black-and-white publication. The first issue appeared on April Fools’ Day, with 6,000 copies selling out by lunchtime.
Using humour to mock the conservative nature of Australian society and show up the hypocrisy of its sexual mores, that first issue kicked off with a piece on the history of the chastity belt, as well as a long feature by Richard exposing the dangers of back-street abortion – at a time when abortion was not only illegal, but a taboo subject. Later issues would focus on censorship, homosexuality, police brutality and the “White Australia” policies of the Australian government.
Related: The revolutionary artists of the 60s’ colourful counterculture
Continue reading...July 15, 2016
Using Trident would be illegal, so let’s phase it out | Geoffrey Robertson
The most portentous decision for every new prime minister is what to write in the secret “letter of last resort” to Trident submarine commanders telling them what to do with their nuclear missiles if the British government is wiped out. In Monday’s debate on the renewal of Trident, Theresa May should tell parliament what life-or-death decision she has made in her letters of last resort.
It is said that Margaret Thatcher ordered our nukes, trained on Moscow, to be fired so as to cause maximum destruction to the enemy – ie to its civilians. That order, even for a nuclear “second strike”, would today be illegal.
Related: The Tories know Trident is a waste of money and only they can kill it off | Chris Mullin
Related: Trident won’t protect us from terrorism. But it will still be renewed | Richard Norton-Taylor
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