Karl du Fresne: When principle sinks in a swamp of legalism

In a past life, many years ago, I informally sought advice from a highly respected Wellington lawyer, the late Sandra Moran, over a legal issue that had been weighing on my mind. 

It involved what I thought was an important point of principle, and I vividly remember Sandra warning me off by saying, very emphatically: “It costs a lot of money to establish a point of principle.” I didn’t have a lot of money, so I didn’t proceed. 

Barend Vlaardingerbroek: ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ – except when a woman accuses a man of sexual misconduct

A prominent theme of the ‘Me Too’ movement is the need to ‘believe’ a woman who accuses a man of sexual misconduct – the man should be presumed to be guilty, thereby turning the presumption of innocence, one of the pillars of civilised law, on its head.

The principle of the presumption of innocence has its origins in the writings of Western European (French, Spanish and Italian) jurists but flourished mainly in the English system of law where it manifests itself in the need for the prosecutor in a criminal case to prove the charge beyond reasonable doubt. The expression ‘innocent until proven guilty’ was coined by the Victorian jurist William Garrow. Lord Sankey in 1935 referred to it as the ‘golden thread’ that runs through English justice (readers may recall this as being one of Rumpole of the Bailey’s favourite quotations).