Having been dragged out of retirement to act as coroner in the Inquest, Lady Butler-Sloss has now gone back to her potting shed citing lack of experience; curious since she was once Britain’s premier female Judge and retired as President of the High Court Family Division. You’d think it would be difficult to find someone more qualified. She replaced Michael Burgess, coroner of the Royal Household who ducked out last autumn citing pressure of work. Hard not to form the view that a pattern is emerging, and in the process adding yet more fuel to the fire of the conspiracy theorists, whom the inquest was intended to appease.
Surely its one of those roles where you think long and hard before accepting. At the higher levels law and politics have always been intimately interlinked. Ruthie doesn’t envy the job of the laywer who has to give the advice as to whether Lord Levy should be prosecuted. Or advice as to the legitimacy of war.
Still Lady Butler-Sloss must have known she was being asked to grasp a pooey stick. It appears she had not anticipated the successful Judicial Review of her decision to sit alone by Michael Mansfield on behalf of Mohammed Al-Fayad. Whilst Ruthie has the benefit of hindsight she thinks that in a case of this significance, a jury was always a likely possibility and one that ought reasonably to have been foreseen.
So now we have Lord Justice Scott-Baker who has a reputation for roasting babies whole and eating them for breakfast. Lets just hope he doesn’t get killed in a car crash half way through. Oh and if he does, Ruthie is not volunteering for the job. Ok?
Surely the point was that she had limited (or no) experience of Jury trials notwithstanding her vast family experience.
Indeed. But then why take it on knowing that there was a realistic possibility that it would be heard before a jury?
Corporate Blawg would love to be the one who provides objective common sense to the government.
It’s pretty easy…
1. yes Lord Levy should be prosecuted.
2. yes the war is illegitimate.
But then again, Corporate Blawg is a bit of a yes man…
3. yes Gordon Brown is cheating the British public by becoming an unelected prime minister
4. yes David Cameron is sleazy, untrustworthy and will become equally inawed by himself in power as TB did, and this will cloud his judgement leading to the same hypocrisy and disilliusionment the British public are now used to
5. yes I don’t know who the LibDem candidate is
6. yes Corporate Blawg should run for president of the Hackney
(Did you know that ‘Tories’ originally referred to rural bandits in Ireland?)
Yes man eh? Thats a reckless statement to make when Ruthie is about..
I’m currently blogging from a cafe in the City awaiting the arrival of a photographer from the Law Society Gazette, who intends to photograph me with the fancy lap top that I am reviewing for the Gazette.
The fact that I am able to connect is a good advert for the Vodaphone mobile connection that I am currently using, lucky since their promised Wifi connection seems not to work.
If I’d thought about it CB we could have done lunch, assuming your firm are prepared to remove your manacles for 30 mins. I guess you could always promise to work all night to make it up to them.