Fake Law| A Book Review

The Secret Barrister is the perfect introduction to the law and how it works. This is a book about justice, how it is pursued, applied, and how it is misinterpreted.

It is primarily a book about the UK Laws and its subjects, case studies and reactions are focused on that country. However, I found it very helpful in understanding the law and how it works.

Before reading this, I knew almost nothing about the law, but the Secret Barrister has delivered me and encouraged me to read further.

The law profession is a hideous profession, that's partly because lawyers make it mysterious and because it was designed to be so. For instance, judges are not allowed to do many things in public like explaining why they applied or delivered judgments. Another thing that has contributed to making the law so hidden is the fact that many citizens believe that they will never fall into trouble that will to having court cases until it happens and they have to learn it from scratch. Indeed, most citizens live their whole lives without having any court case. However, it is a gross mistake to believe this, for even if we do not have a direct court case there are several aspects that affect us. In the case of the UK, the court played a role in determining how Brexit should happen, which will affect all UK citizens. If you don't understand how the law works, you will most likely not have understood why the courts assessed things.

Other things I learned from this book include how judges can only pass judgments that have already been passed by parliament. That is, a judge cannot pass a death sentence for a person who has committed a heinous crime if the law passed by parliament does not include that.

The UK Judiciary is quite interesting. Judges are not nominated like in the US system, where their courts are increasingly looking like their political parties. Furthermore, having access to legal services is guaranteed for everyone.

This book is filled with several cases that will help the reader understand the law. Although the authors' intention was to educate people about how justice in the UK court system has been wrongly perceived, my key takeaway as a Nigerian is how the law works. The examples helped me why judges and lawyers do what they do.

I will tell you one example of how this changed my thinking. I have been following cases of innocent men (mostly black men) who have been sentenced to life in prison in the US. Recently, a group of lawyers has been revisiting these cases, more than 700 of these men were cleared and set free after spending decades in prison. Any public announcement of such a case produces public outrage, which is rightly so. I am also angry. I've seen people calling that judges who pass such wrong judgments should be punished and sent to prison too. This is what I no longer support. Why? Judges pass judgment based on the evidence before them. In many of these cases what happened was that these men were charged by highly paid lawyers who had a strong case against them but many of them (because they are poor and black) do not have strong legal representation, are found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. In the eyes of the law and based on the case and evidence before the judge, the accused is only facing what the law says. Is this really the judges' fault? It will be wrong to think I'm blaming the innocent man. I'm simply saying, we need to understand that the judge did what he did base on the evidence before him. Of course, judges make mistakes, but this kind of situation can only change if poor people can have the best legal representation. That's partly what the UK has done by legal aid available for most of its population. The proof that this can work is in the over 700 men that have been cleared and set free. What changed was that they got legal representation that was solid. If only they had this many years before.

Back to a Nigerian example. Last year there were local government elections in Plateau State, the PDP could not participate because they could not meet up with a court requirement. An interesting that happened was that politicians in PDP went on the internet and media platforms to decry the Governor for being anti-democratic. They rained insults and attacks on him being a tyrant. Plenty of people bought this hook, line, and sinker. But what really happened? It was PLASIEC, (not even the state government) that PDP had a case against. First, a member of PDP took the party to court over a discrepancy in primary elections, the court passed a judgment that PDP should conduct another election within a specific period, but the party did not meet the deadline. The court gave two further deadlines but the party did not meet either. After the deadlines, the part held an election and submitted it to PLASIEC but PLASIEC refused to accept the results explaining that the deadline has passed. PDP sued PLASIEC, but the court passed judgment in favor of PLASIEC. The PDP then sued PLASIEC demanding that the elections be halted but the court ruled in favor of PLASIEC demanding that the elections should go on. But politicians in PDP kept shouting that it was Lalong that was destroying democracy, of course, the governor would have enjoyed this outcome, but still, he had no hand in it.

This brings me to the last thing which the author has decried in several words, the manipulation of cases and judgments by self-interested groups. In the UK and the US, there are prominent examples of individuals, groups, and media manipulating judgments to suit their agendas. If not for any reason, this is why we must understand the law, because we cannot afford the constant manipulation of judgments and cases by politicians and self-interested groups.

To say that this is a good book will be an understatement, this is a must-read, for everyone!