An Aussie who came to London and stayed, much to our public benefit. Geoffrey Robertson's book The Justice Game is a candid and beautifully written journey through a number of key cases. He came over here from Sydney in 1970 initially as a diversion from his path to qualifying as a Sydney solicitor and the real work for tax haven candidates of corporates Down Under.
He studied at Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship but was pulled into the underground publishing world of fin de sixties London and a trial that caught the attention of the international press- the Oz magazine trial.
He rapidly learns that justice gets done when people are watching - especially when the press bench is tight with journalists. Barristers are people who dedicate themselves to another's case relentlessly, ardently, spending long hours in research. They are tasked with distilling the facts of a case with lucidity; they have to understand the relevant tests of wrongdoing; they have to refer to precedents or where precedents are absent, applying 'the first rule of creative lawyering' - if something has not been done before, 'that means that there is no precedent to stop you from trying to do it for the first time.'
They have to navigate biased judges and juries influenced by press and prejudice; they have to sometimes negotiate poorly drafted legislation, or complacency in government or ministers who resort to white lies or abuses of power in the corridors of same; they sometimes have to expose plain old corruption among heads of government; in one case (Singapore) Geoffrey challenges a dominant incumbent who is applying the legacy of British colonial law to exert control over his subjects like a feudal despot from the medieval period of Europe.
There is a fundamental difference between law and justice. Justice is a game and clearly he plays it outstandingly well.
Geoffrey is founder and head of
He studied at Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship but was pulled into the underground publishing world of fin de sixties London and a trial that caught the attention of the international press- the Oz magazine trial.
He rapidly learns that justice gets done when people are watching - especially when the press bench is tight with journalists. Barristers are people who dedicate themselves to another's case relentlessly, ardently, spending long hours in research. They are tasked with distilling the facts of a case with lucidity; they have to understand the relevant tests of wrongdoing; they have to refer to precedents or where precedents are absent, applying 'the first rule of creative lawyering' - if something has not been done before, 'that means that there is no precedent to stop you from trying to do it for the first time.'
They have to navigate biased judges and juries influenced by press and prejudice; they have to sometimes negotiate poorly drafted legislation, or complacency in government or ministers who resort to white lies or abuses of power in the corridors of same; they sometimes have to expose plain old corruption among heads of government; in one case (Singapore) Geoffrey challenges a dominant incumbent who is applying the legacy of British colonial law to exert control over his subjects like a feudal despot from the medieval period of Europe.
There is a fundamental difference between law and justice. Justice is a game and clearly he plays it outstandingly well.
Geoffrey is founder and head of
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