SHOW TRIAL WOULD HAUNT US

Don’t abandon the presumption of innocence: Chris Uhlmann

An alleged rape committed 33 years ago is haunting the Morrison government. But the consequences of the public show trial, driven by the vicious winds of social media, may come to haunt us all.

In an anonymous letter sent to the Prime Minister late last week a friend of the woman at the centre of this storm made a passionate plea for justice. The letter noted that, under NSW law, the police cannot continue with a criminal complaint because the complainant committed suicide last year. ‘‘Failing to take parliamentary action because the NSW Police cannot take criminal action would seem like wilful blindness,’’ the friend wrote.

In a perfect world truth and justice would always prevail when a crime was committed. In our imperfect one we have to make do with evidence and the law. They are very different things. Sometimes our legal system delivers both. Too often it does not. But in the absence of a better way, criminal law provides protections, like the presumption of innocence, that should not be abandoned in the heat of outrage no matter how just the cause.

Perhaps the most eloquent debate on this divide is in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons. In it the character of Thomas More is not pitched as a saint but a man of conscience with a deep faith in God and English law. One of More’s foils is his son-inlaw, William Roper, a Lutheran zealot. In a seminal scene in the play More’s family is appalled by an encounter with Richard Rich, a man they rightly see as evil and whose perjury will lead to More’s execution.

Margaret More: ‘‘Father, that man’s bad.’’

Thomas More: ‘‘There is no law against that.’’

William Roper: ‘‘There is! God’s law!’’

More: ‘‘Then God can arrest him.’’

More says Rich should go free even if ‘‘he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law’’.

Roper: ‘‘So now you give the Devil the benefit of the law.’’

More: ‘‘Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?’’

Roper: ‘‘Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!’’

More: ‘‘Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?’’

This is the argument Scott Morrison invokes for the minister accused of rape. What is his alternative? If he was to do what those seeking justice demand he would name the minister, stand him down and then force him to a trial in front of some yet-to-be-invented parliamentary or quasi-judicial inquiry.

Such an inquisition would essentially reverse the onus of proof on the minister because how can that be anything other than inventing a process where the accused is forced to prove his innocence? He may well deserve such a fate, but so do many. The world is rich with unpunished criminals.

The minister is being urged to out himself, clear the names of his colleagues and mount his own defence. He may well do this as his name is now all over the internet and it will inevitably go mainstream. When this happens, whether guilty or innocent, his career in politics will be over because there is nothing he can say that will placate his accusers. If an accusation alone is now enough to end a political career then it will be weaponised.

Finally, mounting a defence for this man is, as the anonymous letter writer accuses, ‘‘wilful blindness’’. It is why ‘‘Lady Justice’’ has always been depicted wearing a blindfold, since she was first imagined in the form of the Greek goddess Dike. It is a symbol of her impartiality.

In a Man For All Seasons, Bolt was walking in the footsteps of another great writer, Hesiod. In 700BC the poet wrote ‘‘listen to right and do not foster violence. The better path is to go on the other side towards Justice... for Dike (Justice) beats Hybris (Outrage) when she comes at length to the end of the race. But only when he has suffered does the fool learn this.’’

In this violent age of outrage any defence of the accused minister will stoke the fury of the mob because, if

– as many have already judged – he is guilty, it is the equivalent of making an argument for Satan.

But standing on the shoulders of Hesiod, Bolt made a compelling case on the lips of Thomas More as to why Satan deserved the protection of law. ‘‘This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!’’

Chris Uhlmann is political editor for Nine News.