Geoffrey Robertson’s ‘The Tyrannicide Brief’
Esteemed human rights barrister and judge Geoffrey Robertson QC has always been a hero of mine. (Strictly speaking, Fred Astaire was a hero of mine long before I'd heard of Robertson and his Hypotheticals. I was devastated when my mother told me that Astaire probably wouldn't be available for tap lessons, but Robertson has never disappointed.)
Like many Australians of his generation, this Sydney-born Rhodes scholar took off for England when he had a chance and ended up making his home and an exalted career there. At one time when I was studying human rights in London, I was reading Robertson's Crimes Against Humanity when I noticed in the author's biog that his barristers' chambers was in the street where I lived. As it turned out, I needed a job and they needed a receptionist, so I worked for a short time in his chambers and even met the great man, from my lowly perch in his waiting room. (It might have been a more interesting story if he'd given me tap lessons, but there you are.)
As a history, Robertson's new book, The Tyrannicide Brief: The Man Who Sent Charles I to the Scaffold (Chatto & Windus, London 2005) is something of a departure for him, but it delivers with all his characteristic wit, style and intellectual rigour. He examines a fascinating period of English legal history through the life of John Cooke, the largely forgotten barrister of common birth who prosecuted King Charles I for tyranny and paid dearly for it. As practitioner and pamphleteer, Cooke instigated many truly ground-breaking legal reforms, including the presumption of innocence, the right to silence, the independence of judge and jury, legal aid and the 'cab rank' rule obliging barristers to defend unpopular clients. Cooke's exemplary character and gory execution will haunt me for a long time to come.
Robertson writes vividly of the brutal Civil Wars, trial of Charles I, the republican years and Restoration, set in a context of religious fervour, witch hunts and bubonic plague. Robertson also highlights some of the laws of war which had their genesis in this period, and demonstrates the relevance of Cooke's legacy for today's international criminal prosecutions, such as Saddam Hussein's. An engaging and rewarding read for lawyers, human rights types, history buffs and laypersons unfamiliar with the period (such as me). Whet your appetite with this extract from the book at OpenDemocracy.
[…] I've previously written of my admiration for Australian-in-London human rights QC Geoffrey Robertson. There's another Australian member of the bar I adore: the cultured, erudite and articulate Mr Julian Burnside, who tirelessly promotes human rights in Melbourne. Despite the large venue, one simply could not get a ticket for their joint performance at the Melbourne Writers' Festival in August last year, when they address the topic, 'Whatever happened to human rights?' […]
[…] Reflecting on David Hicks‘ detention at Guantánamo, Geoffrey Robertson argued in his Kenneth Myer lecture this month, […]