A Legal Challenge

Jock — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:52:32 +0000

Just by way of another brief interlude in my self-imposed blog silence while I am upgrading software and design, I wanted to mention the wonderful speech I heard yesterday. One of the nice things about being one of the university's governors is that I can get to choose to go to pretty well any number of graduation ceremonies. I don't avail myself of the privilege terribly often, but I went yesterday evening to the graduation ceremony for most of our law students.

The honorary graduand was Clive Stafford Smith, the British born US based death-row lawyer and campaigner against the death penalty and torture and all things Guantanamo. As I understand it, he is, like many passionate campaigners, if not many lawyers, not terribly well remunerated, to put it mildly. His clients tend, almost by definition, to be amongst the poorest, often least educated in US society, and they have no legal right to representation once the sentence is handed down. There's not a lot of money in death penalty appeals or sticking up for the disappeared in America's network of secret GTMO-like prisons.

So he was appealing for these bright young starry eyed graduates to come and be exploited by his charity, Reprieve, for a few months, or more precisely, their parents to fund them while they are there. He promised an experience the like of which they are unlikely to find in a whole career at the Old Bailey or the corridors of corporate power. While they may dream of millionaire partnerships at Clifford Chance, he does it because it is fun! You cannot imagine the fantastic feeling you get, he says, when you "whip George Bush's ass in the Supreme Court" and defeat the world's only super-power in their own courts.

And when you think about it, how do we measure success? Is it the money? Or perhaps the satisfaction of a David victorious against Goliath. read more »

Chinese corrruption - one rule for the rich?

Jock — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:15:34 +0000

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this guy normally have been taken out the back of the court and had a bullet put into his brain?

Shanghai F1 boss jailed for graft

Yu Zhifei was caught up in a wider corruption scandal

A sports magnate credited with bringing Formula One to China has been jailed for four years for corruption, according to Chinese media.

Yu Zhifei, ex-manager of the Shanghai International Circuit, was convicted of embezzling more than 1m yuan (£69,500; $137,500) during the late 1990s.

Not, of course, that I'm in any way endorsing the death penalty - I just seem to recall something recently about China stamping down on corruption by imposing the death penalty for even the smallest breaches. Maybe that only applies to relatively poor corrupt officials rather than the "magnates" that bribe them? read more »