s/forget passphrase for/cause permanent destruction of/ , Re: Letwin wants increased penalties for refusal to decrypt

[Nicholas Bohm]

At 09:26 21/08/2002 +0100, David Hansen wrote:
>On 20 Aug 2002 at 20:22, David Swarbrick wrote:
>
> > > On 20 Aug 2002 at 15:10, Owen Lewis wrote:
> > >
> > > > If a judge's order is not complied with, it can be called
> > > > 'contempt of court'.
> > >
> > > A clash of wills. Judges may be able to get away with this sort of
> > > arrogance for a short time. However, they will find it very
> > > difficult to do so for a long time.
>
> > It is not arrogance, it is simply saying that the
> > parties have to recognise the right of the court to decide.
>
>Courts have no "rights" in themselves. The individuals who operate in
>courts should always be reminded that they are fallable, but there is
>an arrogance that grows up amongst some such people, who become too
>big for their boots.
>
>An example of this sort of arrogance is the Ealing Vicarage Rape
>Case. The fool sitting in his funny clothes was so arrogant that he
>said something like, "the victim has not suffered too much from this
>ordeal." The victim pointed out that this fool must be very gifted.
>He had not bothered to talk to her and find out how she had been
>affected by the events, he just assumed he was a mind reader.
>
>There is a difficult problem. These people are government employees,
>despite a transperent pretence of impartiality. They are
>unaccountable, but any attempt to make them more accountable would be
>difficult without strengthening the hand of government. The fool in
>the case I mentioned claimed that he had not been promoted because of
>this incident. That's not being held to account for his stupid
>statement and the contempt which he showed for the victim.
>
>I offer no solution for this problem.

The bulk of litigation (civil and criminal) is decided by judges below High 
Court level, who are sackable by Ministers.  Only the tip of the iceberg of 
judicial work is carried out by judges of the High Court, Court of Appeal, 
House of Lords or Privy Council, who are removable only by Parliament.

Even the protected judges depend on the Government for advancement from 
High Court to Court of Appeal to the House of Lords and Privy Council; and 
even in the House of Lords I think the the Government has recently adopted 
a process of appointing the Senior Law Lord.

In some ways it's encouraging the Government nevertheless loses so many cases.

The only remedies I can see are to place appointments and advancement of 
judges (including more of those than presently covered) either in the hands 
of the judges or in the hands of an independent commission appointed partly 
by judges and partly by Government, the commissioners themselves being 
protected from removal and having long terms of office.  These ways of 
diluting Government influence have the incidental drawback of increasing 
unaccountability, however, with its attendant risks of arrogance (sometimes 
leading among other things to pointless, foolish and profoundly offensive 
remarks from the bench).

Regards

Nicholas

Salkyns, Great Canfield,
Takeley, Bishop's Stortford CM22 6SX, UK

Phone   01279 871272    (+44 1279 871272)
Fax     01279 870215    (+44 1279 870215)
Mobile  07715 419728 (+44 7715 419728)

PGP RSA 1024 bit public key ID: 0x08340015.  Fingerprint:
9E 15 FB 2A 54 96 24 37  98 A2 E0 D1 34 13 48 07
PGP DSS/DH 1024/3072 public key ID: 0x899DD7FF.  Fingerprint:
5248 1320 B42E 84FC 1E8B  A9E6 0912 AE66 899D D7FF