tim's experiment

The rule of law requires, or so it seems to me, not only that the law should be obeyed but also that it should know its limits.  The rule of law is sabotaged, not served, if laws are passed which cannot be enforced, or if courts presume to sit in judgement on matters over which they have no control. Traditionally one of the limits on the powers of the courts was the geographical terrain covered by their jurisdiction. There have always been some exceptions to this. Treason, for example, would still be treason if the offending action took place abroad, as it often did. Lately we seem to have seen a good deal more. Some countries feel their courts should be prepared to try people accused of serious crimes committed elsewhere, like General Pinochet. Some feel that their own citizens should face criminal charges at home for crimes against children in other jurisdictions where such matters are pursued less avidly. At least in these cases the defendant, if not the place of the crime, is in the country claiming jurisdiction and the court can inflict punishment on him or her. So the proceedings are not pointless.

Which is more than you can say for the Hong Kong government’s decision to hold an inquest into the Manila bus tragedy. The Coroner,we were told last week, had “called” or “summoned” more than 100 witnesses from the Philippines. The correct word here is “invited” because it is entirely up to such witnesses whether they wish to spend a day or two participating in a Hong Kong legal circus. Or not. Anyone who has anything to hide would be well advised to stay away and probably will. Actually it is difficult to see what this exercise can be expected to achieve. The UK government has occasionally held inquests into the deaths of Brits abroad, when there was genuine uncertainty about how they died. But this is hardly the case with the tragedy in Manila, which has been very thoroughly explored already. We know who killed the victims and how they died. That is all a Coroner is supposed to be concerned with anyway. When I reported on inquests we were frequently reminded that the purpose of the proceedings was merely to arrive at the right choice from a limited selection of verdicts: the proceedings were not intended to produce a detailed account of the death, not supposed to gratify the curiosity or resentment of surviving relatives, and not supposed to lay the foundations for civil action later by or on behalf of victims.  People may feel disappointed that the very thorough inquiry by the Manila government was not followed by more stringent punishment for officials who erred. But that is hardly an argument which can be advanced seriously by our government, whose idea of suitable punishment for an official who commits a gross error of judgement is that she should apologise. But only if she has not done so already.

Fans of our local system will wish to interject at this point that errors in considering applications for post-retirement employment from former mandarins do not lead to loss of life, unlike errors in handling hostage situations. This is true in a restricted direct sense. Nobody dies if a senior civil servant cuddles a property mogul. In a broader sense it is not. Two people died during last week’s cold snap because they were sleeping in the street. If Hong Kong’s housing policies were driven by social need instead of the wish to cosset a small circle of property developers then maybe we would not have people dying under our flyovers like the heroine of the Little Match Girl.

To return to our bus tragedy, what is going to happen after the inquest? Normally the Coroner might make recommendations. Even our government frequently ignores them. It is difficult to imagine any great new insights emerging from the Hong K0ng proceedings. In fact as there will be a general absence of such useful formalities as a visit to the scene of the tragedy it is rather easier to imagine the proceedings producing some thoroughly unhelpful observations which will give grievous offence without helping anybody. The inquest may publicise some things in Hong Kong which are not widely known here, but it will hardly have anything to say which is news in Manila. The government there can afford to greet any suggestions made with one of those phrases which our government uses when contemplating an unhelpful public opinion poll – something along the lines of all views will be considered with the attention which they deserve. Basically the Philippines may have problems but it is not a sort of diplomatic domestic helper at the beck and call of the Hong Kong government. 

Well the inquest will produce a lot of media fodder, enrich some lawyers and perhaps gratify some Hong Kongers who want to watch a Manila official squirm in the witness box. No doubt it can be defended along roughly the same lines as the Asian Games – it will encourage local legal culture, boost interest in judicial matters and give our aspiring competitors a chance to perform before a large sympathetic audience. Students now still in Form Three will later attribute their choice of a legal career to the inspiring and educational effect of a long inquest on an overseas gunman’s victims. It will be worth the expense, about which we have so far been told very little. Meanwhile our Travel Advisory people continue to pretend that the Philippines are more dangerous to travellers than Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia or Colombia, which suggests that either ignorance or political vindictiveness is polluting what should be a source of objective information.

I wonder. The official inquiry in Manila concluded that the affair had held up a mirror to a society and showed distressing levels of corruption and incompetence. That was a brave conclusion. Hong Kong’s official reaction suggests distressing levels of arrogance, ignorance, and racism. But I fear introspection of this kind is not our leaders’ forte.