Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Things Can Always Get Worse (Part II)

Despite reasonable expectations to the contrary, it now turns out that there are people out there even less suitable to determine this country’s foreign policy than the Foreign Office. In a stunning rebuttal to those who argue that we are faced with a judiciary determined to turn the clock back to pre-Civil war days, the bewigged ones have decided to bring the same expertise to bear on foreign affairs that they harnessed so successfully on domestic matters. Expect war by Christmas.

In this specific outrage, our Lordships have decided to subcontract foreign policy to the Guardian leader writers. Personally, I think DV calls it exactly right. I’d only add that this is yet another case of the sheer humbuggery of modern Liberalism. These people constantly whine about the dangers of the Anglosphere acting as the world’s policeman, but what else would you call arresting a foreign citizen for alleged offences committed in a foreign land against foreigners ?

Indeed, take the whole question of multiculturalism. We’re told that we are in no position to say whether selling your daughter into marriage is a good or a bad thing, but we can say with precision whether or not the conduct of a foreign army thousands of miles away is excessive or not – this being decided, not incidentally, by a bench rat who probably doesn’t know the first thing about Jihad, Israel or infantry tactics. Then again, Liberal multiculturalism never extended as far as actually learning anything about alien cultures. Western cultures are evil, non-Western ones are good, and that’s all you need to know.

But wasn’t it the Libs who were positively outraged at the thought that relatives of homicide victims would be offered the chance to testify in court ? Yes, I believe it was, but now we have an entire case bought by lawyers acting for Jihadis and the Left thinks that’s just ducky. Run this by me again – the mother of a slaughtered schoolboy testifies at the trial of a murderous paedophile and the majesty of the Law is being dragged into the gutter, but a group of murderous savages connive with activist officers of the court to carry out the legal harassment of a man who they’re committed to slaughter – along with his family, his neighbours and indeed most of the population of the planet - and that’s a great step forward ? Apparently, this ‘objectivity’ thing is trickier than you’d think.

That’s the thing – the whole myth of judicial independence is predicated on the idea that while politicians are weather vanes, the judiciary stand up for fundamental rights, untroubled by the vagaries of political trends. There are plenty of reasons for Conservatives to be sceptical of this line of argument merely from first principles, but as this case proves, the judiciaries’ supposed fundamental principles are entirely fungible. The fundemental building blocks of British justice just happen to be whatever best serves the needs of the Left today.

Judge Workman himself provides a fine example of this. While anxious to expand the reach of law into Israel, when it comes to dealing with real criminals closer to home, suddenly it turns out that he’s a model of judicial restraint.

No comments: