hk song

Horace Rumpole and the Principle of Legal Anarchy

The Golden Shred

(from 10/14/23)

The excellent Rumpole of the Bailey, a TV show and a series of books about a curmudgeonly English barrister that covers the Thatcher years, written by the barrister/writer John Mortimer is now on BritBox and well-worth watching. One episode, Rumpole and the Golden Thread, forms a chapter of Peter Kittle’s PhD thesis -- Thatcher’s institutions: Hegemony and national identity in popular British fiction.

Chapter 4 -- The Law of Empire: Rumpole and the Postcolonial Prerogative

My notes:

  1. What is the role of the British legal system in the British sense of national identity? Kittle writes, “the long history of British common law serves a specific ideological function. It helps to establish as a distinctly British trait the fair and reasonable treatment of those involved in legal proceedings, whether criminal or civil.”

  2. The story Rumpole and the Golden Thread is set, very unusually, in Africa, in the fictitious country of Neranga. The story is inspired by events that happened in Zimbabwe and the trial of the seven accused Zapu dissidents. The British High Commissioner in Neranga is a man named Arthur Remnant, “he is among the last vestiges of the British Empire still extant in Neranga” (Kittle, p. 168). “The story as a whole… makes the British justice system a clear marker not just for national identify, but for the British position in the larger global community” (Kittle, p. 169).

  3. parallels with real life (per Kittle):

    • Neranga (formerly New Somerset)

      • based on: Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia)

    • David Mazenze (Nerangan Minister of Home Affairs) -- Apu tribe

      • based on: Joshua Nkomo (leader of the oppositional Zapu Party) and a former member of Mugabe’s cabinet, from Matabeleland

    • Dr. Christopher Mabile - Matatu tribe

      • based on: Robert Mugabe (prime minister and leader of the ruling Zanu Party)

    • Sir Worthington Banzana (judge)

      • based on: Hilary Squires
        -white judge accused of judicial bias during the trial

    • Trial of David Mazenze

      • based on: trial of seven Zapu dissidents

  4. “Mortimer’s story may question the universality of Common Law, but still poses the question in purely British terms” (Kittle, p. 175)

  5. Mortimer never challenges the institution of the Courts nor, really, the fairness of laws. In this sense, Rumpole is both conservative (small c) and naive. Rumpole stories do not exist in the conceptual, legal, social extremes where the law is uneasy, vague or inadequate, and Rumpole (as he himself admits) has little to do with the nuances of the written law, and everything to do with the people (and the society from which they come). His skill is not in the understanding of laws, as prescribed, but in understanding the machinations of the legal system (as a cultural institution).

  6. Rumpole as an anarchist. “I believe in Mutual Aid, Universal Tolerance, and the Supreme Individual. At heart, I’ve long suspected I’m an anarchist” (Mortimer, Rumpole Second Omnibus). Regarding the practice of law, his whole identity rests on two absolutes regarding which he is never willing to yield: a) never plead guilty; b) the Golden Thread (the presumption of innocence).

  7. In Rumpole and the Golden Thread, Mortimer ironically and rather cleverly, reverses the courtroom drama trope -- namely, the verdict of Not Guilty is a death sentence, while Guilty means freedom (both individually and politically).

  8. Someone once said that what made British TV of a certain era (Sixties, Seventies) so compelling was that there were a lot of people working in the medium who felt they did not quite belong. Sort of entertainment’s equivalent of Michael Foot. Seems that John Mortimer is definitely of this mould, although few have been quite as adept in bridging the literary fiction/television divide.

  9. Although the character of Rumpole was inspired by Mortimer’s father (himself a barrister), in a sense the son also cultivated the Rumpole persona. Clearly, he was a more ambitious lawyer than Rumpole -- made QC, took on famous cases -- and retired to the life of a famous writer living in the countryside. His politics, also, ran to the left of Rumpole’s. One suspects that Mortimer admired Rumpole as a purer, untainted version of his father and grew into him as we -- in so many ways -- adopt the manners, habits and outlook of our parents as we age.