Don't Short Circuit Justice!

 Harvey Weinstein & Natural Justice

by Les May

ON Thursday morning as we sat sipping our coffee on Todmorden Inside Market my wife commented ‘It seems to be open season on Harvey Weinstein’.  As I had never heard of him I could only say ‘Who’s he’?

My ignorance was short lived.   Bang on the front page of my paper was a picture of a somewhat unprepossessing chap, with a younger woman on each arm, which raised in my mind the question of whether they had first been attracted to him for his good looks.

My wife was right.  After several actresses had accused him of making unwanted sexual advances to them it seemed the journalistic equivalent of the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, plus uncle Tom Cobley and all, immediately decided the women must be telling the truth and decided to ‘give him a good kicking’.   To add an element of farce Harvey decided to check into ‘rehab’ for treatment for sex addiction.

It wasn’t just the journalists. ‘Our Treeza’ decided to get in on the act too.   There was talk of him losing his British CBE and the Oscar board have convened an ‘emergency meeting’.   Phew!

But it’s not all bad news for Harvey.  He got lucky; the police in Britain and the USA have said they will investigate.    That means his accusers will have to make formal statements.  If they are telling porkies they’ll be found out.  He’ll know exactly what he is accused of.  He’ll be innocent until proven guilty. The women will have to interrupt their ‘busy schedules’ to turn up in court.  The legal process will take its course.   (Actually I don’t believe that last sentence; it will end up with a plea bargain.   Followed by a lot of articles about how ‘the system’ let down women yet again.)

Unfortunately it’s not just where ‘celebs’ are involved that there is an eagerness to short circuit the protection the law affords both to the accuser and the accused in interpersonal disputes where ultimately it boils down to nothing more than ‘his word against hers’.

It is becoming the norm that in universities, larger companies, trades unions and the like, these kinds of dispute are dealt with internally in what can most charitably be described as the most amateurish way, by people who have little grasp of the rules of evidence or much concern for natural justice.

Natural justice really boils down to common sense.  Here are some ground rules.
Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.  In other words no-one has to ‘prove’ their innocence.
The accused person should be informed of the specific charges against them and the name of their accuser.
The accused person should have the opportunity to cross-examine the accuser and vice versa.
The same goes for any witnesses, be they for the accuser or for theaccused. If an organisation uses a panel of people to investigate an incident, then a different panel of people should be involved in assessing that evidence and coming to a judgement, and the evidence collected should be available to both parties.

As I observed earlier natural justice is common sense.  It’s about being fair and being seen to be fair. Anything that fails the test of fairness, isn’t justice.