SOMETIMES our news is dominated by stories that don’t matter that much to most of us, to the extent I sometimes wonder if they are deliberately concocted to take our minds off war, imploding economies and the like.
One such is the row over super-injunctions, which will no doubt have taken myriad different twists (and tweets) between me finishing this article and its appearance in print.
If I were a cynic, I might argue this whole thing has been whipped up by a particular section of the national news media, enraged because its celeb quarries have found a way to spike a bunch of exposés. I might also say that, personally, I’m not that interested in the private hypocrisies of public figures.
However, my view changed towards the end of last week, for two reasons. One was the revival of a battle for power that’s been going on for as long as we’ve had constitutional government, and the other was the case of Sir Fred Goodwin, the man who presided over the Royal Bank of Scotland getting into such a crisis it needed a huge bail-out from you and me to survive.
The suggestion that the super-injunction Sir Fred acquired to silence discussion of his alleged sexual impropriety may have also stifled legitimate questions about how the bank collapsed is enough to make me a great deal more concerned about gagging orders.
Then there was the spectacle of two very senior judges, very politely but with a distinct hint of menace, decrying the fact naughty politicians had undermined Sir Fred’s court order by discussing his case in Parliament, and warning journalists they may risk prosecution for reporting comments made under Parliamentary privilege.
All of which I interpreted as the judges telling the naughty politicians to get their tanks off the judges’ lawn, pronto.
This is an ancient battle and a serious one, for judges in this country are protective of their power, which is greater than many realise. It’s not only those convicted by a jury who need fear their wrath, as anyone who has breached any sort of court order can attest.
Anyone who thinks the politicians are always in charge need only consider what happened when City of York Council said an ice rink could operate in the shadow of Clifford’s Tower and York Crown Court thought differently.
A constitutional lawyer would point out, quite rightly, the importance of an independent judiciary to challenge illegal or unconstitutional acts by politicians.
Judges are, of course, an elite untouched by any direct democratic process, but then bad things are sometimes done in the name of democracy and approved by the people, and judges act as a balance against such evil-doing.
One historian believes England’s judges helped make the country a great trading nation, because foreign merchants knew in London they would have recourse to an unbiased and non-corrupt legal system that was unknown elsewhere.
But modern judges tend to pick unfortunate cases to champion, thus appearing as protectors not of our ancient rights but of the status quo and the rich and powerful.
The super-injunction story shows every sign of blowing up in their faces, not helped by a very silly footballer taking legal steps which actually increased his exposure by users of Twitter, and probably helped to embolden a Scottish newspaper to put him on its front page.
Good judgement at this stage might involve the top judges advising their learned friends to go easy on the gagging orders for a while, or risk the law being made to look even more of an ass.
Speaking of judgements, the world did not come to an abrupt end on Saturday.
But the Judgement Day prediction was, I understand, not for a sudden ending but a rather drawn-out one, and there is a volcano causing a few difficulties again up in Iceland which might yet give us more pressing things to worry about than a few super-injunctions.
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