This entry may come across as somewhat surreal, but these are politically surreal times. Yesterday our Prime Minister has delivered an odd speech in which he appeared to blame last week’s riots on an an excess of human rights. (Really, Mr Cameron? Really?)
As a lapsed human rights lawyer, I found this to be both terrifying and darkly hilarious. I imagine the future in which human rights lawyers are under strict supervision, so that they don’t provide their clients with too much helpful advice.
I can see it now: a whipping post erected on the College of Law’s Bloomsbury campus, in a convenient central location for any onlookers to attend. Crowds would gather to be reassured that these dubious human rights apologists are getting the treatment they deserve. The lawyers and law students would each be tied to the post for at least a dozen strokes of the whip, though for those with a particularly dangerous human rights track record the sentence will be more severe.
Yes, I can see it all now. We mustn’t allow human rights to undermine our society, oh no.
An excess of human rights? That’s an oxymoron!
As a suffering individual who works for a Very Large Herd of lawyers, I solemnly suggest that all lawyers be subjected to a review of not only their ethics, but their manners and common sense as well, and have whippings all around! Surely each courthouse could set aside a whipping room…