Letters to the Editor
Lord Goddard L. Blom-Cooper, Rose Macaulay The Princess and the Archbishop Geofirey Murray What are the Facts? Graham Greene
The Failure of President Bencs Sir Geofirey Mander, H. G. Alexander
AdvertisingTax Dan Ingman A. E. Housman Herbert Palmer Division Bell Colin McCulloch
LORD GODDARD
SIR,—The gravamen of Mr. Levin's charges against the Lord Chief Justice of England under the guise of a book review entitled 'Brother Savage' is that Lord Goddard is emotional (Mr. Levin says that he displays 'girlish emotionalism' and in another passage that he is 'muddled, narrow, overwhelmingly emotional . . .').
While there is happily a growing opposition to Lord Goddard's views on such matters as flogging, capital punishment and psychiatric evidence in the courts, no one who really knows our Lord Chief Justice would say he is emotional about these sub- jects or any other subject. He is in fact an immensely human man whose bark on the bench is considerably worse than his bite, a matter to which the Bar would amply testify. Young barristers who are often said to quail before him arc in fact the object of much of his kindliness. It is right to say that he does represent all the majesty of the law in his behaviour. But to paint Lord Goddard as some sort of ogre is outrageous as well as being grossly inaccurate.
But to return to emotionalism: it may be diffi- cult to convince Mr. Levin how wrong he is, but may I cite a passage from a report of the Manchester Guardian's Parliamentary Correspondent on the
House of Lords debate on corporal punishment on October 22, 1952? The correspondent said:
All this [referring to particular crimes of violence] could not help but tug at the emotions, though it would be doing a grave injustice to Lord Goddard to suggest that he did it with any such design.
He was as unemotional as you would expect a judge of his eminence to be and argued his case for restoring corporal punishment on severely rational grounds. It was in the same temper that he sought to answer the objections raised against doing so.
As an abolitionist myself on the question of capital punishment I have always held the view that so far as the retentionists' case can he put on a rational basis Lord Goddard has been its most eloquent and effective spokesman. Is not Lord Goddard's defence of the use of these instruments of society's retribu- tion, which are most readily at hand and require the least effort in their employment, a reflection rather of his Victorian outlook than of any sadistic tendencies in him? Lord Goddard may be out of date in criminological thought, but this is very understandable even if at the same time considered reprehensible. After all, it is only just recently that the idea of setting up an Institute of Criminology in memory of the great Margery Fry is materialising. No university has taught this subject as part of its curricula, with one or two notable exceptions. Is it little wonder that the Lord Chief Justice, a product of the universities of the last years of the nineteenth century, should reflect the views of those times rather than those of post-war Britain? In any event, one must always judge his attitude in conjunction with his very real concern with the victims of crimes of violence. He would, indeed, I think be a supporter of the move initiated by Margery Fry to start a compensation fund for the victims of crimes of violence. His philosophy that you must meet violence with force is thus not based on the idea of retribution but on the theory of deterrence. It is only in recent years that the deterrent doctrine has come under such heavy fire; hitherto it was universally accepted.
But to dwell on these matters, as Mr. Levin does, is to miss the true worth of our Lord Chief Justice. Mr. Levin, by not referring to the many facets of Lord Goddard's achievements, has weakened his case for attacking him on such subjects as corporal and capital punishment.
It is possible to say here only a few words of Lord Goddard's very substantial achievements. The post- war spate of litigation in the High Court was dealt with in a manner which was highly commendable. Some of the practitioners grumbled at the system of 'floaters' which the Lord Chief Justice introduced so that litigants were ready to come into court as soon as one oase was finished.. Whenin late 1956 the cause- list became normal Lord Goddard quickly took the opportunity to abolish 'floaters' and bring in a system of fixed dates for the hearing of ordinary actions. The old idea that a system of fixed trials would result in a waste of judicial time did not deter Lord Goddard from turning to a scheme which' he knew would be regarded favourably by the public. The idea that the litigants were in the courts at the convenience of Her Majesty's judges, as the dis- pensers of justice, rather than the other way round met its death at the hands of Lord Goddard.
A criticism often levelled at Lord Goddard is that he selects his cases. This has always been the preroga- tive of the Lord Chief Justices and there is not a scin- tilla of evidence that Lord Goddard has abused the privilege. But most important of all, Lord Goddard, in the tradition set by Lord Atkin, has more than any other modern judge protected the individual from the executive. He has not been afraid to tilt at the parliamentary draughtsman when he thought the language of a statute was obscure; he was in par- ticular a strong advocate of the removal of war-time legislation. His judgment in the identity card case in ,1951 led to the abolition of those documents of executive control which Lord Goddard said the police were abusing. But more than anything else he has restored the prerogative writs, those bastions of the individual's rights, to their former glory; and for this, if for nothing else, Lord Goddard will be remembered as a great Lord Chief Justice.— Yours faithfully,
[Bernard Levin writes: 'With much of what Mr. Blom-Cooper says I agree; in particular, Lord Goddard's frequent defence of the liberties of the individual against the power of the State must com- mand the respect even of those who most strongly oppose his attitude in other fields. But I think Mr. Blom-Cooper has rather missed the point of my references to emotionalism. It is no answer to say that Lord Goddard's presentation of his arguments before the House of Lords was calm and rational; I have no doubt they were, and would hardly expect anything else from a judge of Lord Goddard's stature. But it is the case itself that is based on emotion, not on reason, and no amount of rational presenta- tion can alter this. As for Mr. Blom-Cooper's assertion that Lord Goddard's theory of punishment is deterrent, not retributive, the Lord Chief Justice has made it clear that he holds to both theories; it was the retributive half of his beliefs that I was criticising.'—Editor, Spectator.]
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