All in a week's news
Catching up after a short holiday and it's been a week with some interesting events.
Yesterday we had the to my mind astonishing threat by the UK Government to revoke the diplomatic status of the Ecuadorean embassy in order to detain and then extradite Julian Assange, after Ecuador indicated that it would grant asylum.
What is it to the UK if Assange chooses to spend some indefinite time holed up in the building, rather than risk being deported from Sweden to the USA? It won't cost us anything in public funds, and is the UK Government really obliged to pursue him onto foreign soil, as the Foreign Secretary's statement seems to suggest?
Quite apart from the message it would send, if the threat were to be carried out, about trampling over the status of other countries, what would the implications be for the future of British embassies abroad? Let us sincerely hope the threat is taken no further; it should never even have been uttered.
Also yesterday, the High Court in London ruled against the paralysed Tony Nicklinson's plea to be allowed someone to put an end to his life without thereby rendering themselves open to prosecution for murder. However tragic the case, and that of "Martin" heard along with it, I am unable to think the decision unjust. As I have argued before, it is not possible to draw a rule, legislative or otherwise, permitting such hard cases without drawing arbitrary lines which could themselves be challenged, or else allowing more or less unrestricted euthanasia, which would be fraught with risk whatever your view of the morality of it.
Finally, for the moment, the rather heavy handed guidance for judicial office holders in England & Wales on (or rather mostly against) judicial blogging has attracted much comment. It expressly prohibits anything which even identifies an anonymous poster as the holder of such office, with disciplinary threats for contravention, or for failing to remove any infringing content from the web.
As has been observed, is there even a problem needing to be addressed? Naturally we expect discretion and restraint in our judges' public utterances, but if that is adhered to, are we not more likely to aid the cause of public understanding than to undermine public confidence if we tolerate such ventures? Knowing the ease with which social media can be used to foster a climate of negative opinion, it is rather shooting oneself in the foot to deny its use to provide a little insight from the opposite angle.