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musa pembo
United Kingdom
154 Posts |
 Posted - 15 Dec 2005 : 02:15:02
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And the winners are...
By David Pannick, QC
Foolish judges, noisy counsel and wacky law suits - the howlers and humours of 2005
AT A preliminary hearing of his trial in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein refused to obey a request to state his full name, asking the court “Are you judges?” There were a large number of candidates this year for the award for the judge who least looked the part.
The United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, allowed an appeal from an immigration decision by Judge Nathan Gordon which it described as “literally incomprehensible” and appearing to be “an unedited version of a badly transcribed, rambling set of oral observations”. The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal decided that the decision of Mr Justice Yam after a 172-day trial of a dispute about the will of billionaire Teddy Wang was “blatantly wrong”, and “unbalanced and unjudicial”. Counsel described one aspect of the trial as “a cock-up”. Lord Scott of Foscote (one of the judges) commented that this was “a description from which I do not dissent”. But the winner of the award for least judicious judge is Franklin Jones, of New Hampshire, who resigned after groping five women at a conference on sexual assault and domestic violence.
Most unusual sentence of 2005 was imposed by Judge Lauri Blake in Dallas, Texas. As a condition of probation for an offence of drug possession, the judge ordered Christina Brazier, 17, not to have sex so long as she lived with her parents and attended school. Judicial question of 2005 was from Judge Seddon Cripps at St Albans Crown Court. Puzzled by the concept of a “sofa bed”, he asked a witness: “How can a bed be turned into a sofa?” Flexible judge of the year was Caroline Ludlow, sitting at Ipswich Crown Court, who sentenced a defendant, Aftab Ahmed, to 140 hours of community service by mobile phone when a traffic jam delayed his appearance in court.
Most embarrassing apology by a barrister was from Hong Kong counsel Roderick Murray, for his false statements to the press outside the District Court that he had sex on two occasions with the female judge before whom he had just made a drunken appearance. He was suspended from practice for six months. Most acrimonious dispute of the year between judge and lawyer was at Harrow Crown Court, where Judge Sanders asked Justin Bearman, counsel for the Crown in the case of a man cleared of rape, how long he had been a barrister. When Bearman replied “long enough”, the judge responded, “but everything you say is utter rubbish”.
Oddest defendant of this year (and any year) was Michael Jackson, who a California jury found not guilty on charges of child molestation. During the trial he brought his “personal magician”, Majestic Magnificent, to sit with him. After the verdict, Jackson sent each juror an armband inscribed “Love Always”.
The Jackson trial also resulted in other awards. Witness of the year was television chat-show host Jay Leno, testifying for Jackson. At the conclusion of his evidence he turned to the jury and said, “I have Renée Zellweger on the show tonight”. The prize for inaccurate legal scoop of 2005 goes to the Daily Star for reporting (almost credibly in the context of such legal lunacy) that Jackson would call as his star witness Bubbles, his pet chimpanzee, with California’s famous ape, Koko, a sign-talking gorilla, acting as interpreter.
The Jackson trial was also commended in the category of enthusiastic prosecutor of the year after Tom “Mad Dog” Sneddon began his opening statement by shouting so loudly that the court’s sound system malfunctioned. But the winner of the award was the Arkansas prosecutor hoping for a useful witness who subpoenaed everyone to whom a defendant in prison awaiting trial for murder had sent letters. Including his dog.
Least persuasive testimonial for a judicial appointee was President George W. Bush’s comment that his personal lawyer, Harriet Miers, is “plenty bright” and so was being nominated by him to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. When it became obvious that the Senate would not confirm her as bright enough, Miers wisely asked for her nomination to be withdrawn. A special award this year for the provision of too much information by a Supreme Court nominee: it goes to John Roberts, the new Chief Justice of the United States, who jokingly told the Senate Judiciary Committee, in response to criticism that he was not forthcoming in answer to questions, that his favourite films are Doctor Zhivago and North by Northwest.
Most foolish judicial decision of the year was the injunction granted by a court in British Columbia, Canada, after a bookshop inadvertently broke the embargo on the sale of the latest Harry Potter novel by a few days. Customers who had already bought the book were prohibited from reading their copies until after the official publication date. Least credible interpretation of the Human Rights Act was the ruling by managers at Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax, West Yorkshire, that visitors to the maternity wing should not fawn over newborn babies because of their right to privacy.
Among the important civil claims this year, the £850 million misfeasance claim brought by the liquidators of BCCI against the Bank of England collapsed after 256 days in court. The European Court of Human Rights stated that you have the right to marry your former mother-in-law, that a general ban on voting by all prisoners breaches their human rights and that two campaigners who distributed a leaflet libelling the McDonald’s fast food chain were denied their rights to free speech and to a fair hearing.
The Michael Howard-David Blunkett award for the Home Secretary with the coldest relationship with the legal profession goes to Charles Clarke, who told the House of Commons that he had “spent decades of my life being patronised by lawyers, and I do not appreciate it”. Lord Woolf retired as Lord Chief Justice. His successor, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, commented that politicians should realise that judges “are all trying to do our jobs to the best of our abilities”. A former Home Secretary, Lord Hurd of Westwell, wisely observed that “obnoxious people of all descriptions tend to have good lawyers”.
A new category of award this year, for the client with the largest number of lawyers. The European Court of Human Rights rejected the complaint by Carlos the Jackal, once the most infamous terrorist in the world, about his prison conditions in France, pointing out that he had “received very frequent visits from his 58 lawyers”.
Cartoon of the year was by Pat Byrnes in The New Yorker. One lawyer says to another, “Remember, we can only afford to do all this pro bono because of how much anti bono pays”. Best legal headline was in The Sun. After Saddam Hussein threatened to sue the newspaper for printing pictures of him in his Y-fronts, The Sun responded with a threat of a counterclaim, under the headline: “We’ll sue the pants off you.”
As always, there were many contenders for most absurd lawsuit of the year. Pop star Bono successfully sued his former stylist in a Dublin court for the return of a pair of trousers and a hat that he said had “iconic status”. A prisoner in Romania is suing God for failing to save him from the Devil, in breach of the contract made at the time of his baptism. A woman in Brazil is claiming damages from her partner for failing to give her orgasms. And a special mention for the ridiculous legal dispute in which the radical preacher Abu Hamza refused to leave his cell to attend a preliminary hearing of criminal charges because of a disagreement over the length of his toenails.
But the winner of absurd lawsuit of 2005 is Marina Bai, an astrologer, who is suing the US space agency, Nasa, in a Moscow court for £172 million for launching a space probe into a comet, thereby, she alleges, “distorting my horoscopes”. No doubt she already knows the result of this, and all other lawsuits to be heard in 2006.
The author is a practising barrister at Blackstone Chambers in the Temple and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford
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