Hallo, hallo, hallo. What have we got here, then?
So, let me get this right. A person who does not know what he is talking about, has advised the Coalition, or at least, the Tory part of that Coalition, on a subject he knows nothing about. To obscure either the issues or the fact that he is in ignorance of the law, he claims that the issue is not about law but about politics.
Leaving aside the issue that politics is about power, and law is about the extent and limitations of power, the European Court of Human Rights is about law and its decisions are based upon law.
We should be very wary of someone who comes along, say someone who calls himself a political scientist, who says that the issue is about politics and not law, because he is more comfortable with politics, and not law, and suggests a political solution to a legal problem. This approach, I say as a lawyer, albeit as a jailhouse lawyer, who has considerable experience in controlling the ambit of political power by legal means, is a catastrophe waiting to happen for politicians in a legal world.
It would not be beyond the realms of possibility, that part of the price of supplying what can only be described in legal terms as negligent advice to the Government was a seat on the Commission recently set up. Alternatively, the Government, or the Tory part of it, suggested to him that he would be providing a National Service if he took part. In any event, besides being a discredit to himself Michael Pinto-Duschinsky discredits the Tory part of the Coalition!
More on the story here and here.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
What's a 'political scientist'?
ReplyDeleteTim: I think it is someone who, by way of experiment, in a Labo(u)raTory creates a politician...
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