Jonathan Swift and the State of Jurisprudence Today

Introduction by David Sims

TOMMY Robinson’s livestream could not have been prejudicial to the trial of the Muslim pedophile rapists because the jury would not have had any chance to see that Facebook livestream prior to giving their verdict in the case, which they did on that very same day. The first opportunity by members of the jury to view anything Tommy Robinson said would have been later, after their verdict had been issued. Furthermore, Tommy Robinson wasn’t the only person to upload a livestream with commentary to the internet. That Sikh fellow, a Mr. Singh, was doing exactly the same thing, and nobody charged him with contempt of court.

It appears that there is one standard by which contempt of court is judged in the case of Tommy Robinson, and a different standard for others. Most likely, Tommy Robinson was arrested simply for being Tommy Robinson, a person with whom the Establishment has a grudge.

It is a maxim that the surest way to be jailed for contempt of court is to prove to a judge, beyond any reasonable doubt, that his court is contemptible.

There has been a thick cable of evil intertwined with British jurisprudence for a very long time. The corruption crops up here in America too, as with the trials of persons involved in a certain violent incident in Charlottesville, Virginia, wherein all of those who should have been convicted were acquitted instead, and wherein all of those who should have been acquitted were convicted instead. All the guilty were set free. All the innocent were given lengthy prison sentences.

On 28 October 1726, Jonathan Swift published his book Gulliver’s Travels, in which Gulliver happened to find himself in a land of talking horses. The text is in the public domain. I will quote the relevant passage, which suggests that the justice system has been corrupt for a very long time [though the addition of wealthy Jews to the mix has made things much worse since Swift’s day — Ed.].

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I SAID THERE was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves.

For example, if my neighbour hath a mind to my cow, he hires a lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cow from me. I must then hire another to defend my right, it being against all rules of law that any man should be allowed to speak for himself.

Now in this case, I who am the true owner lie under two great disadvantages. First, my lawyer being practiced almost from his cradle in defending falsehood is quite out of his element when he would be an advocate for justice, which as an office unnatural, he always attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill-will. The second disadvantage is, that my lawyer must proceed with great caution or else he will be reprimanded by the judges, and abhorred by his brethren, as one who would lessen the practice of the law.

And therefore I have but two methods to preserve my cow. The first is to gain over my adversary’s lawyer with a double fee, who will then betray his client by insinuating that he hath justice on his side. The second way is for my lawyer to make my cause appear as unjust as he can by allowing the cow to belong to my adversary, and this, if it be skillfully done, will certainly bespeak the favour of the bench.

Now, your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth and equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury and oppression that I have known several of them to have refused a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their office.

It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever hath been done before may legally be done again, and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions, and the judges never fail of decreeing accordingly.

In pleading, they studiously avoid entering into the merits of the cause, but are loud, violent and tedious in dwelling upon all circumstances which are not to the purpose. For instance, in the case already mentioned, they never desire to know what claim or title my adversary hath to my cow, but whether the said cow were red or black, her horns long or short, whether the field I graze her in be round or square, whether she were milked at home or abroad, what diseases she is subject to, and the like. After which they consult precedents, adjourn the cause from time to time, and in ten, twenty, or thirty years come to an issue.

It is likewise to be observed, that this society hath a peculiar cant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply; whereby they have wholly confounded the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong; so that it will take thirty years to decide whether the field, left me by my ancestors for six generations, belongs to me, or to a stranger three hundred miles off.

In the trial of persons accused for crimes against the state, the method is much more short and commendable. The judge first sends to sound the disposition of those in power, after which he can easily hang or save the criminal, strictly preserving all the forms of law.

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Source: David Sims