Post by eckadimmock on Sept 26, 2008 10:18:03 GMT
The Tyrannicide Brief www.theage.com.au/news/reviews/the-tyrannicide-brief/2005/08/18/1123958166549.htm
I'd always thought of the English civil war puritans as fruitcakes who went around smashing churches and outlawing all fun. In fact, the main character of this book was by all accounts a very interesting character. This book is about John Cooke, the barrister who prosecuted Charles I. Again, I had the idea that the trial was something of a show trial and a foregone conclusion, but Geoffrey Robertson (himself a QC) argues that the trial was a model of fairness, in stark contrast to the travesties of justice meted out when Charles II regained the throne and rounded up the regicides.
Cooke proposed a number of things that were much later taken up: legal aid, a national health service, the right to silence, prison reform and the "cab rank rule" that lawyers have a responsibility to take cases as they come up, rather than picking and choosing. His proposal that all lawyers should give 10% of their earnings to the poor, has however not proven so popular.
The trial of Charles I was a prototype for the trials of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Melosovic, who used the same defence "by what right do you try me?". Cooke took the case because most other lawyers had fled London to avoid it, but out of a sense of duty he stayed. He constructed a clever case that certain acts constitute treason even by the monarch, as they violate his duty to protect his people.
He was also surprisingly religiously moderate, writing that requiring people to come to church "was but to make them hypocrites". It does get to be a bit dense in places, and the research that went into it, while meticulous, makes it rather long. Still, a very interesting read and an interesting subject.
Colin
I'd always thought of the English civil war puritans as fruitcakes who went around smashing churches and outlawing all fun. In fact, the main character of this book was by all accounts a very interesting character. This book is about John Cooke, the barrister who prosecuted Charles I. Again, I had the idea that the trial was something of a show trial and a foregone conclusion, but Geoffrey Robertson (himself a QC) argues that the trial was a model of fairness, in stark contrast to the travesties of justice meted out when Charles II regained the throne and rounded up the regicides.
Cooke proposed a number of things that were much later taken up: legal aid, a national health service, the right to silence, prison reform and the "cab rank rule" that lawyers have a responsibility to take cases as they come up, rather than picking and choosing. His proposal that all lawyers should give 10% of their earnings to the poor, has however not proven so popular.
The trial of Charles I was a prototype for the trials of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Melosovic, who used the same defence "by what right do you try me?". Cooke took the case because most other lawyers had fled London to avoid it, but out of a sense of duty he stayed. He constructed a clever case that certain acts constitute treason even by the monarch, as they violate his duty to protect his people.
He was also surprisingly religiously moderate, writing that requiring people to come to church "was but to make them hypocrites". It does get to be a bit dense in places, and the research that went into it, while meticulous, makes it rather long. Still, a very interesting read and an interesting subject.
Colin