Title:
The Trial – Four Thousand Years of Courtroom Drama
Author:
Sadakat Kadri
Publisher:
Random House, 2006 (First published 2005)
ISBN:
9780375757037
Pages:
459
Irrespective
of the social and technical level of progress, all human societies are
afflicted with crime. The definition of
crime varies between cultures, but the more heinous ones like murder, rape and
loot invite condemnation from one’s fellow beings at all times. Investigation
of the crime to find the culprit and the way in which punishment is given to
him has undergone tremendous changes over the last 4000 years. Ordeals by fire
and water are no longer practiced, as do public executions in most countries.
There are widely divergent judicial practices in force in various countries.
Trial by jury is so integral to British and American systems that they conceive
it to be denial of justice to repudiate it, whereas in several countries like
India, it is unheard of. Sadakat Kadri aims to present the history of trials
from the earliest episodes in history to O J Simpson’s case in the U.S. This
nice summary of the courtroom drama is eminently readable, coming from an
author who had studied law and history and is a practicing lawyer in London and
New York. Half Finnish and half Pakistani by birth, he lives in London.
Kadri
begins with the most sensational trial of ancient times known to us – that of
Socrates. Contrary to common perception that he was wrongly charged by a regime
that didn’t like criticism of its own actions, the author presents some details
that puts the situation quite different than before. It seems that Socrates’
ideals were so rigid that could be implemented only in a totalitarian state.
Though not comparable to its modern incarnations, Athenian democracy demanded
that the opinions of its free, male citizens counted. On the other hand, Sparta
was a military state, which regulated its citizens’ actions, thinking and
character. Socrates admired this control with which he hoped the rulers could
make the ignorant masses comply with rightly-guided advice of the philosophers.
This might have gone well had Sparta not invaded Athens. But the Peloponnesian
War (431 – 404 BCE) that ensued turned gruesome and lasted for 27 long years.
In the end, Sparta won. A puppet regime was installed in Athens to which
Socrates extended his support. When Athens regained its democracy a few years
later, Socrates was naturally charged with corrupting the youth of the country,
while the charge of collaborating with the enemy hung in the background. In a
verdict that is well known, he was condemned and administered poison in his
cell. Hence, the prosecution achieved its objective in the very first
sensational case known to history.
The book provides a brief description
of the flow of history till the reign of Justinian. He formulated a legal code
that is still the basis of Western jurisprudence. But Europe lost all contact
with it in the Dark Ages, which is traditionally associated to begin with the
closure of Plato’s Academy ordered by Justinian himself. Islamic scholars kept
the flame of classical learning alight in the Dark Ages in the form of
translations and treatises. European crusades in the 11th and 12th
centuries to retake Jerusalem helped the interchange of information between
Islamic and Christian realms. By the 13th century, a copy of
Justinian’s code was unearthed from a monastery. It paved the way for reforming
the legal system. The Inquisitorial System of Pope Innocent III took root in
the continent, while the more humane jury system prevailed in England. In the
former, the judges took the responsibility of investigating the cases as well.
Torture was frequently resorted to, to obtain confessions. The act of being
charged was itself sufficient to ensure conviction in most instances. Acquittal
of a convict was thought to be a failure on the part of the judge, which was
sufficient to prompt him to obtain a confession by whatever means possible. The
inquisitorial system found itself on the losing side as the secular rulers
increasingly asserted their authority on legal matters against hated
intervention by popes. Kadri has given a lucid, ringside view of the judicial
system which was slowly taking shape in Europe. He lists out various cases with
an immensely humorous side tone.
The range of acts for which a trial
was conducted is truly bewildering, as shown in the book. In Europe and
America, witch hunts that were nothing more than legalized murders took place
in the Renaissance era. Women were generally at the receiving end when their
neighbours complained against them to have employed witchcraft and caused mental
or physical damage to them. The society then turned against the accused women
en masse. Evidence, however flimsy, was deemed to secure conviction which was
usually death. Kadri likens the illogical mob frenzy associated with witch
hunts to that of the accused in cases of sexual assault on young children that
raged in California in the 1980s. Similarly, medieval judges could turn against
inanimate objects or even animals by trying them for harm done to human beings.
Several such incidences are listed out in the book in which rats, dogs or weevils
stood accused. All outward appearances were observed in these cases as well,
like serving summons and appointing a defence counsel. The reason for such
irrational acts may be seen to be the Church’s claim to judge any creature for
wrongdoing by assuming the authority of god on earth.
When it comes to modern age, we read
about trials on war crimes and crimes against humanity, such as Nuremberg
trials of Nazi supremos and that of Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia. At the same
time, Kadri shows light on the contours of American injustice when its soldiers
who were accused of equally heinous crimes in Vietnam were shamelessly
acquitted in show trials. He then unsuccessfully extends the logic to plead the
cases of the accused in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons. The author finds
fault with Operation Enduring Freedom in which America flushed out the Taliban
which was ruling Afghanistan till then and providing a safe haven for al Qaeda
operatives who attacked the World Trade Center in 2001. Jury trials were denied
to them and Qadri laments that 22 of the Afghan terrorists attempted suicide
while in detention! He vents his ire on the U.S. Administration that didn’t
grant POW status to them in accordance with the provisions of Geneva
Convention. The inhuman treatment meted out to detainees of Abu Ghraib prison
is then compared to that of Guantanamo Bay experience in an effort to confuse
the reader with this unwarranted comparison of the two detention centres. In
Iraq, the Americans tortured the officials and supporters of the regime of
Saddam Hussein, who were only performing their duty in accordance with their
official responsibility in a sovereign regime similar in stature and equal in
rights to that of the U.S. government itself, which was trying them. This abuse
of human rights of former Iraqi officials is indeed grave, while the etiquette
served in Guantanamo Bay to jihadi beasts captured in Afghanistan was designed
to serve them in the same coin. These terrorists would otherwise have detonated
themselves anyway or might have mercilessly mowed down innocent shoppers,
travelers or theatre-goers.
A break with the beaten path of
covering trials in Europe and America alone is exemplified in the coverage of
the trial in Israel of Adolph Eichmann, a Nazi killer, after Mossad abducted
him from Argentina where he was living incognito for fifteen years after the
end of the World War. A book on the history of trials as courtroom drama would
do well by the inclusion of Islamic jurisprudence and Sharia courts as well,
which is mysteriously omitted in spite of the author’s Pakistani origins. Kadri
reserves his good-natured scorn and ridicule on English and American courts
alone. But harsh recriminations like “there
was no obvious cultural reason why England, born from the same Christian and
barbarian superstitions and subject to equally unpleasant bouts of war and
pestilence, should have been any less draconian than the rest of the Continent”
(p.167) could have been avoided. The diction is full of hearty wit and biting
sarcasm thoroughly enjoyable to readers. We would relish several humorous
anecdotes given in the book. But Kadri sometimes resorts to difficult terms
like ‘discombobulation’ and ‘lachrymose’ which drive most of us to take up the
dictionary. The ‘Notes’ section given at the end of the text is very
comprehensive which runs to almost a fifth of the book in terms of number of
pages. A decent index is spotted at the end, along with monochromatic pictures
representing episodes in the narrative.
The book is highly recommended.
Rating: 3 Star
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