Anyone who follows UK news will have noticed a series of stories about the imprisonment – wrongfully, his supporters would say – of Tommy Robinson for contempt of court.
In brief, he was found guilty of contempt after live streaming the arrival at the courthouse of a number of Muslim men accused of being part of a rape gang. Such is the passion his imprisonment has aroused, it is well-nigh impossible to find an impartial account of what happened. Try your own search to see what I mean.
Robinson, born Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, founded the English Defense League, an organisation he left in 2013. He is a vociferous critic of Islam and is regarded as “far-right”, an epithet that is rife more with insult than meaning.
He has had a series of brushes with the law and had spent time in prison before this latest episode. He is a trifle rough around the edges, a characteristic that may have contributed more to his problems than the ideas he promotes, many of which are also held by the much more gentile Douglas Murry, for example, without attracting the wrath of the law.
Robinson was tried, found guilty and jailed for contempt within 5 hours of his being arrested, a feat that might make its way into the Guinness Book of Records as a speed record for British justice. Or injustice. He is now free on bail because, after an appeal, it was found that there were numerous procedural errors – his supporters would claim he was stitched up – in his trial.
Here is an interview with Robinson:
As I mentioned above, Tommy Robinson is not smooth.
At the appeal, the Lord Chief Justice ruled that the law had not been applied fairly, a gross understatement if we are to believe Robinson.
Time will tell no doubt, but the mess confirms my suspicion developed in both ACoC/ANiC legal wranglings and my legal tussle with the thin-skinned Michael Bird: temporal justice is an elusive commodity, subject more to the whim of judicial predisposition than anything else.
As Blaise Pascal said in his Pensées:
Our magistrates have known well this mystery. Their red robes, the ermine in which they wrap themselves like furry cats, the courts in which they administer justice, the fleurs-de-lis, and all such august apparel were necessary; if the physicians had not their cassocks and their mules, if the doctors had not their square caps and their robes four times too wide, they would never have duped the world, which cannot resist so original an appearance. If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would of itself be venerable enough. But having only imaginary knowledge, they must employ those silly tools that strike the imagination with which they have to deal; and thereby in fact they inspire respect. Soldiers alone are not disguised in this manner, because indeed their part is the most essential; they establish themselves by force, the others by show.
When I was in Dublin a few years back, I came across this Georgian era statue of Lady Justice. It is unusual in that it is not blindfolded – signifying impartiality – but looks at Dublin Castle. This, in addition to the fact that at the time justice favoured the elite, gave rise to the following:
Lady Justice, notice her station:
Face to the castle and arse to the nation.
Not much has changed.
Highly interesting. Moves me to read the Pensee which I have never read. Thank you David.
D’Arcy
Good thoughts.
I gave a lecture just a few weeks ago on this very topic: that the law exerts any influence largely by the weight of a residual majesty that attends it within our culture. In fact, it is extremely difficult to go to prison unless a person has done something extraordinarily vile or aroused the ire of the ruling section of the community. The average criminal commits about 30 crimes before he is incarcerated.
As for the thousand petty injustices that characterise human behaviour, most of them do not find redress from the law and neither do most people anymore expect to find justice. The bald-faced rude harassment from adolescents on the streets; the brick through the window; the vandalism or theft of one’s garden plants – and so on.
The only reason more people do not break the law is due to the reputation it has of being a stern and savage imparter of penalty. It really is not the case any more, especially in an age where both science and the law are becoming more politicised. It is more true to say that the justice system is capricious and arbitrary, costing a massive amount of money to operate. But it is beyond reform because the people who make their careers within it are the same people who tend to enter legislatures and champion judicial activism.