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THE JUDGES' SERVICE
Address by The Most Reverend Dr Robin Eames, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland
It is a privilege to deliver this Address this morning for many reasons. Not least is my personal respect for the role in society of the judiciary. As a former student of jurisprudence and tutor in law school I have tried to maintain my reading on matters legal ever since. I will always be grateful for that discipline in my formative days. The advantage lies I hope in my appreciation of what constitutes the concept of justice. The disadvantage is that too often I am inclined to see both sides to an argument when a single approach could lead to a much easier lifestyle! As words from that popular book and TV series 'An Irish R.M.' put it :
"There are two sides to everything. In Ireland we see those two sides and simply change the question if we don't like either..."
It could be expected that in the context of this service you would receive a spiritual approach to some of the fine principles enunciated in a former age by Justinian, later by the likes of Oliver Wendell Holmes or in more recent times by such as the learned opinions of Lord Denning. However I presume to adopt a different approach this morning. I am also mindful of the Chaplain who had preached the Assize Sermon and failed to obtain any complimentary words from the Judge. At last he asked his lordship point-blank what he thought of his Sermon. "It was a divine sermon for it was like the peace of God which passeth all understanding. And like His mercy, it seemed to endure for ever..."
We are all conscious that in these days public concerns about the administration of justice have rarely been more visible. There is today a degree of public scrutiny of the entire legal process unprecedented in our lifetime. There are many reasons for this. Media coverage of judgements and decisions is constant. Public sympathy for perceived injustice is quickly motivated. Miscarriage of justice real or imagined is excellent copy. People-power has come of age as a means of stirring up community action and reaction. But also recent attempts to encourage what I call the de-institutionalism of the legal process in favour of a more recognisable human accountability have all contributed to a new awareness of how the Courts work, how sentences are related to the offence and how the legal system effects personal lives. We also live in an increasingly litigation-conscious society which appears to be writing new concepts of what justice means.
In my generation of law students 'the man on the Clapham omnibus' had an expectation of the law which was less complicated than today. British justice had a mystique which carried with it its own apparently inherent immutability. His expectation was that justice would at all times be done, be seen to be done and his confidence in the jury system knew few bounds. To 'go to law' in those days was a last resort. To be accosted for even a minor traffic offence carried with it a degree to individual stigma which was its own judgement. Today sitting on the top deck of a bus in Clapham he has become his own legislator, judge and jury. His condemnation of judicial decisions and his analysis of the forces of law and order owes more to his feeling of self-importance than to any natural respect for the common law.
To quote my Irish R.M. once more:
"Times have changed. I don't much like what I see. But then, I don't always have to take much notice, do I?"
What then as we pause in the presence of Almighty God to consider our duties and responsibilities are we to make of that omnibus passenger? What are his current hopes and fears about his rights and duties? To put it another way - at what stop has he decided to leave the bus?
I take as my starting point the concept of responsibility - not as an easy option, but because I believe it reflects more than any other the link between Christian teaching and the judicial process.
Society today in theory prides itself in community awareness. That awareness is based on many factors. In theory we are a communal society. The present government has made much of the need to become a more caring society. That concept involves such words as compassion, communication, mutual support of the vulnerable, help rather than misinformed condemnation and a degree of society-based support for the outcast. It is reflected in the world vision of human rights : in the current obsession of philosophies with what constitutes human dignity and the nature of financial support on the part of the state for those at the wrong end of the poverty trap. Sadly the paradox is simple to express. We are a nation of growing extremes between rich and poor. Co-existent with such concerns are the street people of any major city, the deprivation of families on the poverty line, the increasing number of families and individuals who cannot meet mortgage repayments and the figures of unemployment. Justice is not confined to the judicial decision. Justice has to do with inequality, impoverishment and poverty. The degree to which the contemporary man on the Clapham omnibus cares to look out of the window at what he is passing has something to say to us about the nature of Britain, the nature of our society and the distance which we still have to travel to make this a truly just society. The real question for the jurist as well as the observer of our community is by what criteria does society decide on what is justice or are there pointers from some other source which will help us decide? Where does responsibility begin and end for society today? Is it to be purely a matter for political debate - or has society now propounded a new scheme of things in which an individual sense of what is right and what is wrong depend on utilitarianism of a new dimension rather than on any objective scale of values?
Second, the Clapham bus passenger may well pause to consider how far the idea of justice has become so personalised that we are writing a new code which contains expectations which no longer depend on professional legal advice alone. Has his expectation of judicial justice become such an extension of self-judgement that irrespective of the outcome of litigation expectation has become purely an extension of this new self-awareness? I recall the words of Gerrard Winstanley : "The law is the fox, poor men are the geese : he pulls off their feathers and feeds upon them." It used to be useful to tell law students that the branches of one's neighbour's tree reaching over the fence raised clear cut consequences in law. Today we may well ponder at the expectations of the individual who makes certain demands as the neighbour first plants the tree rather than waiting for the natural growth of the plant, to raise issues of rights. As judges you may well have pondered on the ways the litigant of today expresses an expectation of justice as opposed to his or her respect for what we may yet in Britain be compelled to call a 'code of law'. Perhaps my Irish R.M. had it right when he talked about his privilege "to decide what is right and what is wrong depending on how I feel."
But there is another starting point for the view from the top deck of that historic Clapham bus. It is the one which we have affirmed already in this service this morning. Out-lasting many changes in outlook, incorporated yet often ignored in so-called civilised societies down the generations, appearing at times impotent as secularisation has dominated human relationships and frequently regarded as idealistic rather than practical, for many of us the Pauline interpretation of what Christ told us about that armed robbery on a Palestine road holds the key. What is my duty to others? What is my duty to society? What is my duty to myself? Where does human dignity begin and end? Above all - where does justice in its widest sense stand today? The tapestry before which we must consider such questions contains a principle which I believe history has proved to be non-negotiable. By submitting to the State people debar themselves from taking what measures they please for self-preservation and enforcement of their rights. They do not deprive themselves of those other natural rights which belong inalienably to all.
Perhaps there is still time to think of the reaction of those who passed by on the other side? Perhaps contemporary society has still lessons to learn from the parable of the Good Samaritan - not because it contributes to the 'feel good factor' but because it points the way to the truly just society we seek in our better moments. Common law, legislation, even decisions on the variation of the witness box in the end are a part of that process - but only a part. In the end society of which judges, practitioners, the courts, parliament and the Church are only a part face the scrutiny of a growing sceptical society intent on building its own idols. Those idols have themselves much to say about what we think matters. Yet justice remains a concept which makes sense out of our innermost beliefs and provides a gauge by which we can evaluate behaviour. For the Christian the basis of that process remains the law of God. In 1680 Robert Filmer pronounced "The Kingly power is by the law of God, so it hath no inferior law to limit it." The road to Calvary did not remove the traveller from the pitfalls of injustice, selfishness or human need. 'Who is my brother' is asked by a society which is in transition. The passenger on the Clapham omnibus will be reminded of those affected by his actions and words. He will be advised of the parameters to those actions and words which have legal consequences. Dare we continue to find some eternal truth in reminding him that even now justice has much to say to him about his self-awareness, his self- dignity and his self-importance as one made in the image of God?
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