THE RING OF THE LORDS

(Yardstick, March 2002)

18th February - a Monday at the start of half-term - was no doubt "a very good day" to bury a very bad decision, especially at 9.00 am. What an odd time for delivery of a Judgment that had been awaited ever since the Appeal hearing on 20th-22nd November! The one flimsy excuse tendered by Lord Justice Laws merely made this long delay seem even more dubious. It was even odder that, facing packed press and public galleries, with more crowds of expectant journalists and demonstrators outside, he spent barely one minute announcing dismissal of the Appeal, before proceeding to enter into a debate with opposing Counsel on the two consequential issues of any further Appeal and any award as to costs.
 Small wonder that the massive media coverage throughout the next several days was so ill-informed and misleading! On an issue of such national importance, and after the convicted traders along with all other interested parties had been left in suspense for almost thirteen weeks, it was outrageous that nobody apart from the lawyers had an inkling of the grounds for dismissal or any clear understanding of what would happen next. 

When inviting submissions from Counsel on the two outstanding issues, his comments - which, as he emphasized, were "wholly provisional" - served only to increase the general confusion. However, once the printed Judgment was made available, the absence of any oral summary was not so surprising. For it is deeply flawed. Its many defects will be fully exposed at our Annual Conference in the afternoon of Saturday May 4th. (As this is a bank holiday weekend, many members and supporters will unfortunately be away, but on the other hand it will make attendance easier for many others. Every Saturday in the Spring clashes with some big occasion - in this instance the FA Cup Final! - which cannot be avoided. Besides, the AGM and Conference cannot be left any later, because the several initiatives recently embarked upon by our Executive Committee have to be publicly reported, and a great deal of political activity is required before the Summer recess. But neither could it be sooner, to allow ample time for the event to be organized and for members to apply for tickets and make their arrangements.) 

Sir John Laws' animosity towards the appellants' Counsel, Mr Shrimpton, was even more dreadful than the Judgment itself. Thus, in the printed Judgment: "Before turning to what was said against him, I should add that in summarising Mr Shrimpton's arguments on implied repeal I have not sought to give any impression of the passionate rhetoric with which they were delivered. It did not advance his clients' case. They are entitled to dispassionate justice according to law." 
Indeed they are: but dispassionate justice - which it was Sir John's duty to dispense - is precisely what they did not get from this irascible Judge! As for Mr Shrimpton's "passionate rhetoric": yes, he believes passionately in his clients' cause - what's wrong with that? Besides, aren't most great advocates theatrical and emotional? Sir John's rebuke smacks of sheer prejudice - as did so many of his asides and interruptions, such as, when Mr Shrimpton was carefully explaining a point last November, "Mr Shrimpton, we are not in the 1st year at law school". 
But the most scandalous of all his utterances occurred towards the close of the last hearing, while Mr Shrimpton was pleading for mitigation of any award for costs on several grounds (arguing that his clients were honest men who were simply trying to clear their names of a criminal conviction) when Sir John brutally interjected: "They didn't have to come here". Several eminent barristers to whom this has been reported have expressed their horror and disbelief. It will be widely corroborated and publicized on May 4th.

 Given such a contemptuous attitude towards the appellants, how can this Judgment stand? Meanwhile, on 1st March, an application was duly lodged for permission to take the case to the House of Lords on behalf of Messrs Thoburn, Hunt, Harmon and Dove. The case of Mr Collins, being civil rather than criminal, will instead be appealed to the Court of Human Rights. 
Thanks to Sir John's bullying of Mr Shrimpton's colleague Quinton Richards, the human rights issue never got a hearing last November; and when Mr Shrimpton intimated the intention to pursue that case to Strasbourg, Sir John disgracefully protested: "I thought the human rights issue had been abandoned!" 
Concurrently, there is every prospect of a challenge being mounted against ratification by HMG of the Nice Treaty, by way of an application for Judicial Review. That initiative, too, is founded on the bedrock of our constitution - the sovereignty of the electorate - which has been betrayed by successive governments and must be reasserted. Even if, as the Magistrates' and Divisional Courts contend, parliamentary sovereignty has been compromised - which, of course, we dispute - the sovereignty of the electorate under our constitutional monarchy cannot in any event be compromised. 
18th February was not the beginning of the end but only the end of the beginning! So here's to a knock-out in 'The Ring of the Lords'!