In the High Court in London the other day Mr Justice Tugendhat observed that “It is a further requirement of justice that the court should not make a finding adverse to a person in circumstances where that person has been given no warning of the case which is advanced against him or her.”
Was he rebuking the government over their application of anti-terrorist ‘control orders’ or whatever they are now termed?
No, he was commenting on tabloid newspapers’ recent attempt to have the privacy injunction on the former head of Royal Bank of Scotland lifted: "Sir Frederick Goodwin and the lady had had no opportunity to respond to the case in court."
My heading is usually attributed to William Ewart Gladstone, British Prime Minister and bane of Queen Victoria’s life, but this and other legal principles are equally honoured, in the breach if not the observance, in both this country and the United States:
"A sense of confidence in the courts is essential to maintain the fabric of ordered liberty for a free people and three things could destroy that confidence and do incalculable damage to society: that people come to believe that inefficiency and delay will drain even a just judgment of its value; that people who have long been exploited in the smaller transactions of daily life come to believe that courts cannot vindicate their legal rights from fraud and over-reaching; that people come to believe the law - in the larger sense - cannot fulfill its primary function to protect them and their families in their homes, at their work, and on the public streets." Burger, What's Wrong With the Courts: The Chief Justice Speaks Out, U.S. News & World Report (vol. 69, No. 8, Aug. 24, 1970)
Sir Fred, and all other anonymous citizens, may take comfort that they will be spared the law's delay, even if not the proud man's contumely.
