I have already glanced at the legal issues in The Merchant of Veniceon this blog; but Shakespeare dealt with issues of justice and mercy in many other plays as well. Consider for example Measure for Measure (wikipedia | full text | Project Gutenberg), which juxtaposes imperfect justice on earth with merciful justice in heaven. Christine Corcos on the Law and Humanities Blog writes about a fascinating analysis of the play from a legal perspective (with added links):
John V. Orth, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, School of Law, has published “‘The Golden Metwand’: The Measure of Justice in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure,” in the Adelaide Law Review. Here is the abstract.
Measure for Measure, one of Shakespeare’s problem plays, is a dark comedy depicting Duke Vincentio’s effort to restore respect for the law after a period of lax enforcement. Peopled with a wide variety of law-enforcers and law-breakers, the play implicates numerous legal issues and has consequently attracted the attention of lawyers and judges. In the eighteenth century Sir William Blackstone contributed notes on the play, while in the twentieth century judges have quoted from it in their judicial opinions. Like all good legal dramas, Measure for Measure ends with a trial scene, but – as we would expect from Shakespeare – one with an unusual twist. When charges of corruption are brought against Angelo, the deputy appointed to enforce the law, the Duke orders an immediate trial: Come, cousin Angelo / In this I’ll be impartial; be you judge / Of your own cause. When the deputy’s guilt is disclosed, the Duke commands that he suffer the punishment he intended for others – measure for measure, putting the Bible-conscious play-goer in mind of the passage: Judge not, that ye be not judged. / For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you againe. By ordering Angelo to be the judge of his own cause, the Duke is inviting the deputy to measure out his own punishment. And Shakespeare is forcing us all to confront the difficulty of doing earthly justice.
What if a footballer’s agent, in negotiating for his client, makes a secret deal with the club for himself on the side?
This is how Jacob LJ opened Imageview Management Ltd v Jack[2009] EWCA Civ 63 (18 December 2008). It concerns the bung, which is almost as endemic in football as referees, the offside trap, and angry managers. Bungs are secret payments that are sometimes part of football transfers; taking one is against the rules of football; the question in Imageview Management Ltd v Jack is whether the agent breached his duties to his client as well. The duties in question are fiduciary duties, weighty duties of loyalty owed by trustees, directors, agents, and so on.
In Boston Deep Sea Fishing v Ansell (1888) 39 Ch. D. 339, a company director secretly received commission from shipbuilders with whom an order had been placed on the company’s behalf. The Court of Appeal found him in breach of fiduciary duty. More recently, in Imageview Management Ltd v Jack [2009] EWCA Civ 63, the Court of Appeal reiterated the strictness of the fiduciary duties to which agents are subject in a case concerning a football agent. The agent was liable for a payment he received from a football club. The payment was received without the knowledge of the agent’s client (the footballer). One of the judges, Mummery LJ, expressed a regret (at para. [65]):
… that it is still necessary, in the 21st century, to remind agents of what was said by the greatest of all the judges, Bowen LJ in Boston Deep Sea Fishing [v Ansell (1888) 39 ChD 339] at pages 362-363, about conflicts of duty and interest and the necessity for transparency in the dealings of agents, if confidence in them is to continue. In our age it is more important than it ever was for the courts to hold the precise and firm line drawn between payments openly, and therefore honestly, received by agents, and undeclared payments received by agents secretly, and therefore justly liable to all the legal consequences flowing from breaches of an agent’s fiduciary obligations.
Note: Section 176 of the Companies Act (2006) provides that a director must not accept a benefit from a third party conferred by reason of his being a director or his doing (or not doing) anything as a director.
Update (17 February 2009): the case has been reported by the ICLR as part of its WLR(D) service: see here.
MJELR v Laks (High Court, 14 January 2009, Peart J) [2009] IEHC 3
An application for the surrender of Polish man to serve a 10-month sentence in Poland under a European Arrest Warrant was refused on the basis that there was not sufficient correspondence between the offence and an offence under Irish law to meet the terms of the European Arrest Warrant Act, 2003 (also here).
Tracey v Malone (High Court, 20 January 2009, Cooke J) [2009] IEHC 14
A law litigant who sought a series of rulings against Judge Miriam Malone and Judge Bridget Reilly of the District Court failed in his application and received a declaration confirming his entitlement to retain a professional stenographer at his own expense.
DPP v PS (Court of Criminal Appeal, 28 January 2009) Finnegan J (Budd and Irvine JJ concurring) [2009] IECCA 1
The applicant was entitled to credit for an early plea of guilty, co-operation with the Garda and the early and apparently genuine expression of remorse and this justified a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. However, account must be taken of his continuing danger to the public, meriting a significant period of post-release supervision.
In short: Technical directive seminar | Civil Partnership Bill discussed (ICCL) | Corruption study published | Renewable energy considered (IIEA) | Women lawyers child conference.
In July 2008, Ireland was examined by the UN Human Rights Committee under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The report is here (scroll down to the Irish section, click on the E in the right-most column – so far as I can tell, the UN server won’t accept a deeper link, unfortunately), and I’ve discussed aspects of it here. In July 2008, the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC), the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) submitted an excellent shadow report (pdf) to the Human Rights Committee; and they have now come together again to organize a follow-up event to raise awareness of the Committee’s recommendations on Ireland.
It will be held on Monday, 6 April 2009, at the Radisson SAS Hotel, Golden Lane, Dublin 2.
The North African city of Carthage was rich and powerful, but in the second century BC it suffered a terrible fate. … Carthage was destroyed by Rome and destroyed utterly; its people scattered and its library broken up. The Romans removed Carthage from history with such effect that it’s hard to know the city save through Roman eyes. But the ghosts of Carthage haunted the citizens of Rome and for many Romans the destruction of opulent and civilised Carthage was not a moment of triumph, but a harbinger of Rome’s own fate.
Rome vs Carthage can be a pretty blokeish subject, so it was a nice dare to have an all-woman panel: me, Ellen O’Gorman from Bristol and Jo Crawley Quinn from Oxford. … we managed to come down on different sides of one key Carthage question: what was the city like in the third century BC, just before the Punic wars.
Jo and Ellen took the view that it was really opulent, the Queen of the Mediterranean or (as Jo put it) “the New York of the third century BC’. Beard was more doubtful, suggesting that the opulence was a construction of the Romans themselves, and partly a legitimation for going to war (not unlike the WMD of the recent Iraq war as one of my smart students observed). …
Scene II, the Sermon on the Mount, from the perspective of back of the crowd, where Jesus can barely be heard over the hubub:
GREGORY: What was that? … MAN #1: I think it was ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers.’ … MRS. GREGORY: Ahh, what’s so special about the cheesemakers? GREGORY: Well, obviously, this is not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.
Posted elsewhere (some of my recent posterous posts)
My posterous site is a companion to this blog: anything that catches my eye on the wild wild web that's too long for twitter but too short for a normal post here will (probably - eventually) end up over there.
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