confessions-from-cambridge-law

[confessions-from-cambridge-law]

Reviving my ancient Tumblr for a terrible Law School blog. Hopefully no one notices this ever and I’ll delete it in shame before I get 10 followers.

[confessions-from-cambridge-law]

#2 Coffee et Advocacy

This week's entry I write inside my town's coffee house par excellence; Booths. Most days when I'm not at university in Manchester (Except Sundays, which are mercifully spent at practicing my music and at Church) I work shifts at a local restaurant to afford me to study law. Not that I don't have funds, but they are all too horrendously tied up in old assets. But it's honest work, and an excellent way to build interpersonal skills. A few people have asked me for advice as they start planning out their careers or seek to make a change, and my response unfortunately has to be the same as my (And probably, their) parents: "Get a job." At least when I say it I can surround those quotes in pretty UN badges and tie them up in a ribbon made from a Cambridge degree.

This past week has seen our class introduced to the areas of Criminal, EU, and, my favourite, Public law. Furthermore, this month will see a few of us engage in our first-ever advocacy competition- a Moot on a fictitious case regarding a woman charged with assault, and how we can either persuade the court to get her off it or put her away.

Seemingly modeled off of R v Wilson [1996] Crim LR 573, it brings up matters of consent, and loftier metanarratives of how those married are treated separately under the law regarding alleged crimes against their spouses.

My time spent gaining experience in a family law solicitor's office certainly brought up a great many reasons as to why marriage seems legally not the wisest of decisions. It ironically seemed that it should be illegal for anyone to hear the intimate details of something so harrowing as a divorce, which have to be discussed and dissected as though we were some kind of amoral surgeons- prying open the client's rent heart for all in the operating theatre to see. Having been like most young people, on both ends of some very hurtful romantic conclusions, the idea of undergoing a divorce seems unimaginable. My reading into contract law suggests that even toted safeguards against the worst effects of it - prenuptial agreements - have only just recently had any - limited - binding effect within English jurisdictions at all (Radmacher v Granatino 2010 [2010] UKSC 42).

The case of R v Wilson however, at least as far as the gory facts of the case are concerned, highlight that English judges have historically placed great stock, and great permissiveness, to actions which would otherwise lead assuredly to conviction so long as they are between two spouses (See R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212). Many have claimed that this highlights systemic bias towards heteronormative relationships within the UK by the judiciary. I tend to agree that a bias does exist. However, the judiciary merely reflects the interest, and thus the culture and habitus, of the British Public, which always tends to change to match the latest trends in human rights be they from Berkely or Geneva. Our very placement within the European Court of Human Rights even safeguards us from not straying off the politically correct path to a certain degree, as reflected in A v UK [1998] 2 FLR 959, regarding the horror of the ECHR to the corporal punishment of children, deemed when reasonable as firmly within the Public Interest by English courts.

Following on from last week's mention of Rousseau, it is often through an examination of English case law that we can most clearly see instances of where the Public Interest of the UK has been deemed to lie, and where it may be lacking as a correct representation of post-modern values.

I could hardly, although I might be personally opposed to it, see the case for making extensive body modifications illegal, as reflected in the recent case of R v BM [2018] EWCA Crim 560. If a judge can decide a cosmetic body modification as serving no purpose either medically or within the Public Interest, then surely does not set a dangerous precedent as issues of transgenderism become more visible in the public consciousness? I fail to see how one could, if opposing one out of a concern for "Moral Values" (ECHR Article 8), not oppose the other, regardless of the growing medical corpus surrounding the latter. Even the implications on more the distant issue of transhumanism should be considered.

Regardless, the judiciary can only interpret and enforce the will of Parliament - It is to them all authority is derived, and where all calls for change should be targeted.

Already the law provides so many fascinating avenues for debate, and I can hardly wait to put my oratory into practice. As predicted, Law seems to allow for a great deal of creativity, whilst requiring meticulous attention to detail and a will to put yourself out there in front of a crowd.

Speaking of, I've also been made Class Ambassador, so my UN-followers can rest assured that I haven't ditched diplomacy entirely!

But that is for another entry

[confessions-from-cambridge-law]

#1. Parting from the Memories of Cambridge

It's been a great first week on Campus at The University of Law in Manchester, where I'll be undertaking the Graduate Diploma in Law as a conversion from my studies in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. The only issue is that as a resident of Garstang - not Manchester - It's a 3-hour commute each morning and evening. It means between this Diploma and my part-time job, there's very little time for anything. Given the events of the past 18 months, I knew that having any free time would lead to sitting around dwelling on nonsense, but this is getting quite ridiculous. A Summer without Holiday This month marks the one-year point from my election last year as General-Secretary of the United Nations Association - UK Youth Platform. Elections for the leading positions within our charity will be coming up this month, and we can't wait to see how new faces will transform our association in the years to come. Sadly, one of our events this summer had to be cancelled due to a COVID-19 scare. However, our Youth Summit - the crowning achievement of our directors - went off without a hitch, raising £500 for the organisation. Within UN-matters, on my 21st birthday last August I had the pleasure of being invited to the United Nations Association UK - Westminster Conference in London, where I met the lead and event organiser David Wardrop and his aids in a terrific event that saw peace doves flying out in front of Westminster Cathedral! It perhaps marks a wrap up to a fantastic tenure as, for the first time in my life, the leader of something truly great - a charity that seeks to see British youth given the representation that they deserve on the world stage. I also had the pleasure of meeting Barrister Margaret Owens OBE, who has led a wonderful life of advocacy and supporting widows through her charity, Widows for Peace. The month also marks nearly two years of involvement in The Royal British Legion where I've served as Secretary in planning and hosting events and advertising them on radio and television, from Remembrance parades to a funeral ceremony for HRH the late Prince Phillip. Legion work within the city has winded down with another new intake in Cambridge, but I'm honoured to say that my mentor, a Theological scholar and the good Remembrance Padre for TRBL in Cambridge, has graciously offered me the opportunity to lead a Remembrance service this November at the Cathedral in the Isle of Mann. Where some responsibilities fade, new ones appear. This summer I was elected as a Town Councillor for Garstang, Lancashire, and as Fairtrade Ambassador and a member of the town's finance and planning committees. It remains to be seen how the local press takes to me. But as a new addition to the Garstang Theatre Group's Christmas Pantomime, there won't be any shortage of theatricality. Confessions from a Cambridge Graduate For the longest time, I had always seen Cambridge as the 'end game'. I had always loved Ancient Egypt, and since I was invited to the university at age 6 as part of an academic psychological study, I knew that I wanted to study it at Cambridge. There's an endless cache of memories that I have there; Some wonderful, others terrible. I recall a particularly dark moment when my friend and I dressed for what we assumed to be a formal hall as part of our graduation ceremony. Imagine then the shock when I sat down next to a pirate and a man dressed as a sandwich wrapper. Another time I sunk a Kayak with its rider by accidentally ramming into it at full speed on an 8-man rowing boat. But then there was the time I was translating hieroglyphs off an Egyptian sarcophagus in a museum for a silly video, only to turn around and find a whole crowd gathered around me, telling me "Don't stop." and to continue this now-public performance. I smiled a whole lot that day. I think I only decided I wanted to make the switch from studying Archaeology to Law after I had finished my final exams and took to sipping coffee and reading old books from the market each morning like the absolute pseudo-intellectual I was born to be. On this occasion, I was reading Rousseau's The Political Economy. His concept of the Social Contract and the essentiality of law to protect those with neither the power nor family wealth that I had seen myself in Cambridge, really struck a chord with me. That summer I enrolled at the University of Law, where 2 months later I am now beginning my studies. But what was more, I hungrily read Rousseau's autobiography, Confessions, and saw that the architect of this concept was, at least in his youth, faintly similar to myself. Of course, I don't pretend to have anywhere near the same intellectual capacity as him, but let me tell you something about him when he was near my age: Wandering around the Alps, with no career, he fooled a village into thinking he was a travelling composer. He was housed and fed until his debut with the local orchestra, wherein it was made apparent that he had no idea how to conduct, and he was laughed out of the village. What astounds me is that this event actually happened. I don't think I've ever botched something to this extent, but when I read this I felt a definite chord struck- it was as though my soul had been plucked from my body and implanted within the pages of the author's experience. So many times we find ourselves thrown into a situation where it feels like we're surrounded by wolves. Hopelessly inept in most skills that would have given me respect when I entered University, I found myself having to speak before large audiences or professional committees on subjects that I am ill-suited to give, with cracks in my voice and tremours on my fingertips. I've tried confidently playing the piano before I started to learn it, in a mansion in the hopes of impressing the daughter of its owner. I commanded a boat in a university-level rowing race, shouting orders to actual athletes when my race plan notes flew out of my hands into the River Cam (I feigned incomprehensible drill-instructor anger for sensible commands). With no choral or military experience (Beyond my interviews for Dartmouth or time lighting candles as a Chapel Warden), I gave instruction to a Cambridge Choir, the Lord Lieutenant and various armed forces personnel, before leading the entire crowd in prayer. Uncannily similar to the philosopher, the first time I went to a classical concert in Cambridge I clapped at the wrong time and even the orchestra laughed at me! I think what these experiences and those of a young Rousseau can teach, is that we may be overwhelmed with responsibility or the demands of a certain task. We may, or may not, fail so horribly that we are laughed at and derided. Or instead, we may be applauded, envied, and begged: "Don't stop." So much of my time in Cambridge has been draped in melancholy, with the feeling that I was not good enough compared to my peers. Many times it seemed that this was obviously the case, and I was passed up for those who were deemed better. And sometimes, I was exactly, maybe the only, right person. And for all my moments of infamy, I only experienced them because I forced myself to try. Yet it was those moments that made all the studying, and anxiety; regrets, and heartache - worth experiencing. And I think, maybe the humility gained from experiences like these might have, along the way, forged a character suited to protecting others through the Law.