Two kinds of justice

Heard a very interesting story at dinner the other night, about a High Court judge from Pakistan, who came to the UK to observe UK judges at work. It turned out that as the Pakistani judge observed two of his UK counterparts spending a day deliberating over one case, he creased up with laughter, explaining that in a typical day, he would hear around 50 cases, giving judgements in about 25 of them!

The story gets better- apparently an example of this judge’s brisk modus operandi involved him summoning government officials to court (some in handcuffs, threatened with contempt) in order to expedite the repayment of a widow’s missing pension. If true, I was quite impressed by the example of the widow, who’d struggled for nine years to receive her due, suddenly given justice literally overnight. It seemed a good example of justice standing up for the rights of the individual, against the slow-turning wheels of bureaucracy.

But as I thought about it more, I wondered at the summary powers of this judge. There was something almost regal about his ability to demand instant compliance from sheepish officials.

Is there a danger in dispensing justice too quickly? I suppose that one might argue that showing justice to be swift and effective has the benefit of discouraging people from vigilanteism. But in cases where a resolution can’t be found in a single day, does ‘swift justice’ risk stoking frustration by creating unrealistic expectations?

From my own experience of jury service, I saw the wheels of justice turn very slowly (albeit thoroughly). Perhaps the bottom line is that a plaintiff wants swift redress, but a defendant prefers an adequate chance to put their side of the story.

What do you think? Swift or slow?

Deadline video

Very impressive!

Voting and the expense of scandal

I’ll be voting later today, and I’ve been thinking about the current political scandal at Westminster. I suspect it’ll hit the bigger parties hard in the Euro elections, and possibly give seats to smaller parties (some of whom you would never want to see in office).

It’s true that some aspects of the expenses scandal have been capitalised on by the Conservatives- the Daily Telegraph broke the story, after all.

However, all politicians claim that they’re specially equipped to represent people and work hard on their behalf. In my view, cynical and/or dodgy expense claims send something of a danger signal about politician’s attitude.

I think I’ll vote for Jean Lambert, the Green MEP. She seems very hardworking and has an impressively empty declaration of interests! Kudos to the European Parliament for making the information so easy to find.

My ten favourite pieces of product design #5: bicycle

I think this is perhaps my favourite ever piece of product design. The bicycle as we know it emerged at the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century, looking something like this:

And it hasn’t changed very much since then…

I love the bike’s simplicity, efficiency and elegance. It gets me where I need to be in a reasonable time with no more faff or hassle than needed. I currently ride a Farrhad Manufaktur, like this one:

Obviously, my isn’t nearly as clean as this 😉

It’s a little on the heavy side, but is very low maintenance and the mudguards mean I don’t get splattered en route to work, even if it’s raining.

The only downside of owning a bike in London is that they can get stolen every once in a while, which is very annoying indeed.