Opinion The Taliban menace

In a country which is generally conservative,the establishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in October 2009 is a milestone in British legal history. The new Supreme Court building will be in the renovated Middlesex Guildhall. In the courtrooms,the judges will sit on the same level as the advocates,not in their formidable wigs and gown but in their new attire of a black coat buttoned up to the collar,resembling priests. And why not? Courts are supposed to be temples of justice. However,there is no fundamental change in the role of the highest judiciary. If any legislation contravenes the UK Human Rights Act 2002,the Supreme Court can only issue a declaration of incompatibility of the legislation but cannot strike it down as in the US and in our country. The ball is thereafter in Parliament’s court to take appropriate steps to rectify the shortcomings pointed out in the judgment. And that is usually done.

Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip have made incognito trips to the West End without any fuss about security. The Queen did not want to miss the award-winning World War I drama. So along with her husband,she slipped unannounced to see the performance and they were very apologetic for asking people in the audience to let them pass. At the interval,they disappeared and reappeared discreetly. When they left,they received a round of applause,which the Queen acknowledged with a wave. The British royalty can no longer be considered the epitome of conservatism. A passing thought. Will the Queen and her husband make an unannounced visit to the Mecca of jazz fans,Ronnie Scott’s at Frith Street in Soho,to listen to a jazz veteran like Wynton Marsalis performing there? Ah,that will be the crowning day.

Undiplomatic disclosures

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act in the UK,there have been startling revelations in the release of letters written by British ambassadors about foreign governments and the people of the country where they had been stationed. Lord Moran,high commissioner to Canada,felt,“Canadians had limited talents. Anyone who is even moderately good at what they do—literature… whatever—tends to become a national figure”. In the opinion of Anthony Rumbold,ambassador to Thailand,the Thais have “no literature,no painting and only a very odd kind of music; their sculpture,ceramics and dancing are borrowed”. David Hunt,high commissioner to Nigeria,wrote that the country’s leaders had “a maddening habit of always choosing the course of action which will do the maximum damage to its own interests”. The most devastating assessment was in a 1967 memo by Roger Pinsent,Britain’s ambassador to Nicaragua,that “the average Nicaraguan is one of the most dishonest,unreliable,violent and alcoholic of Latin Americans”. The letters are brutally frank but certainly not diplomatic. A successful application under our RTI Act for disclosure of assessments made by our diplomats about countries where they were posted would be very illuminating. The problem is that any disparaging criticism,even if true,would be withheld by timorous babus because of likely potential damage to foreign relations with other countries. Unfortunately,satyameva jayate has no place in these matters.