Lord Steyn seems like a sensible chap. Judges and Lords appear to be approximately the only people in authority at the moment willing to stand up for the public’s rights; the elected government would prefer to trample all over them.
I wonder if he’s related to Mark, whose views on the subject of Guantanamo are rather less pro-freedom (although admittedly, his writing on postwar musicals is excellent.)
Mark’s Canadian; Lord Justice is South African. So the connection isn’t obvious.
No, I don’t think that they’re related- rather like Zoe Heller and Joseph Heller, also unrelated. Such assumptions on the part of others must come in handy though.
BTW- thanks for your comments at BBBC. I don’t suppose you want to see BBBC succeed though, do you?
Well, not succeed in the sense of get the BBC shut down; however, I’m entirely up for you succeeding at making the BBC’s news programming being more impartial and accurate.
I would be more impressed if some judge was to say that the way judge May (Birmingham circuit judge, Labour candidate & international war crimes judge) is managing the Milosevic trial is inconsistent with judicial principles.
The fact that Milosevic was indicted before most of the things he is charged with hadn’t yet, even allegedly, happened, the vast majority of evidence would normally be thrown out as hearsay, overwhelmingly Serbs alone have been charged, the court know for a fact that the Bosnian moslem secret police have been threatening witnesses, that no Craotian, Bosnian Moslem or KLA leaders are tried, Nato leaders responsible for civilian bombing in an undeniably illegal war are not even investigated suggest it falls somewhat short of desireable standards.