{"id":22562,"date":"2025-09-19T21:21:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T21:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=22562"},"modified":"2025-09-19T21:21:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T21:21:53","slug":"baroness-hale-on-her-stupendous-eye-opening-life-in-the-law-people-are-capable-of-treating-tiny-children-very-very-badly-brenda-hale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=22562","title":{"rendered":"Baroness Hale on her stupendous, eye-opening life in the law: \u2018People are capable of treating tiny children very, very badly\u2019 | Brenda Hale"},"content":{"rendered":"

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W<\/span>hen a supreme court judge is a household name, it\u2019s either because they\u2019re very outspoken on a hot topic, or because you\u2019re living in choppy times, and there are so few grownups left among the legislators that the law has to put its hoof down. Brenda Hale, the right honourable Baroness Hale of Richmond (she doesn\u2019t stand on ceremony, but she\u2019d be annoyed if you got it wrong, preferring things to be right) emphatically doesn\u2019t fall into the first camp, but was thrown into the spotlight in 2019. This was when she found Boris Johnson\u2019s suspension of parliament \u2013 which meant his government could evade scrutiny in the run-up to Britain\u2019s exit from the EU \u2013 unlawful.<\/p>\n

Now retired, she was then head of the supreme court and boy could she accessorise. She handed down that ruling wearing a spider brooch with a body as big as a plum, and one headline that week ran: \u201cSpider woman takes down Hulk: viewers transfixed by judge\u2019s brooch as ruling crushes PM.\u201d Johnson, of course, was not crushed, but got his miserable deal through and survived to make a complete, self-serving hash of the next crisis. \u201cI\u2019m not going to make any comment about Brexit,\u201d she says, slightly incredulous that I would ask. I can\u2019t help it, unfortunately. It\u2019s like a tic.<\/p>\n

All that feels like a long time ago and far away as we meet at her home in Richmond, Yorkshire, a scene of unshowy comfort and order. Sofas match, light streams in; people rarely raise their voices in this house, one senses. She\u2019s vexed at the rabbits destroying her beautiful garden, but her impatience is inexplicably charming.<\/p>\n

Both her stepdaughters live \u2013 I don\u2019t want to say \u201cin different wings\u201d, which sounds inaccurately Brideshead \u2013 let\u2019s just say, in different parts of the house. Hale lost her husband, the legal academic and QC, Julian Farrand, in 2020. Her new book, With the Law on Our Side: How the Law Works for Everyone and How We Can Make It Better, is dedicated to him, \u201ca fearless fighter for rights and justice\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously,\u201d she says of 2019, \u201cwe had two cases that were very high profile and attracted a lot of attention, mostly from people who didn\u2019t understand what the cases were about.\u201d One was whether or not the prorogation was justiciable \u2013 that is, whether it was right to involve the courts at all. The other was whether it was lawful. \u201cThey weren\u2019t cases we had any choice about. We\u2019re flung into these things which happen to have political ramifications, but we\u2019re dealing with something other than the politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span>Brenda Hale reads the ruling in September 2019 that the prorogation was \u2018unlawful\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Supreme Court\/AP<\/p>\n

She has now written a how-to book about the law \u2013 not how to practise it, but how to love it the way she does. In the first of its three parts, she operates as a kind of secret-shopper, dipping in to the Royal Courts of Justice, a county court in Middlesbrough, benefit and employment tribunals, a family court in central London, saying what she sees. The second section is about our rights under the law, and the third is about how laws get made. Given the two overriding elements of her post-referendum reputation \u2013 one, that she is a magnificent spider woman; two, that she will not take sides, politically, by accident or on purpose \u2013 it\u2019s a surprise to read from the outset a completely unvarnished critique of government, that \u201cthe justice system has been starved of the resources it needs to do the job which we all need it to do\u201d.<\/p>\n

She speaks in the distinctive way of a person who is used to having their words transcribed, always knowing when she starts a sentence how it\u2019s going to end. \u201cWhat I wanted to do was to write a book that said, on the whole, the good things about the justice system and what the justice system can do for<\/em> people as well as to<\/em> them. So if you\u2019re writing a book which is mostly about what you think is good, you have to acknowledge the things that are not so good. Otherwise, it\u2019s not fair to the people who are struggling. It\u2019s not fair to the reader.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was once taken as given, \u201coften among people who had no direct knowledge of the justice system\u201d, that it was \u201ca site of national pride, the best in the world\u201d. It\u2019s still the case that \u201cthe people working in it really care about the system \u2013 the lawyers, the staff, the clerks, the prosecutors, the police, the judges. There are a lot of very dedicated people out there.\u201d But the bottom line is, there isn\u2019t enough money, particularly in criminal and family courts, and if it weren\u2019t for those dedicated staff, \u201cthe whole thing would fall apart\u201d. Public servants trying to fill the cracks in degraded state services with their own civic duty is hardly breaking news, but it\u2019s pretty off-brand for the judiciary generally, and Hale in particular, to mention it.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Hale poses with her colleagues before they process from Westminster Abbey to the houses of parliament in 2017.<\/span> Photograph: Paul Marriott\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Before she was the first woman to be appointed to the supreme court (in 2009), having been the youngest and first female commissioner to be appointed to the Law Commission in 1984, she was a judge on the family circuit, and has heard some awful things. \u201cSometimes it has to do with poverty and circumstances, but sometimes it has to do with genuine cruelty. Which people find really difficult to understand or accept, that some people are capable of treating children, especially tiny children, very, very badly.\u201d All judges have had sleepless nights, she says, over assessing risk, especially in families.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the stories,\u201d she writes, \u201care quite mundane \u2026\u201d But the abiding atmosphere she creates, describing courtrooms, is not mundanity or anguish, but fascination. Even the most trivial battle \u2013 two people crashing on a roundabout, the case hanging on whether or not it was reasonable to enter with one\u2019s view obscured by a white van \u2013 is weirdly engrossing, maybe because we\u2019ve all made decisions while obscured by a white van, sometimes multiple times a day. Hale starts, however, in the court of appeal (criminal division), where a set of defendants have been recently convicted of sexual offences they committed some or many years ago. The question is, should they be sentenced according to the tariffs (minimum terms) of today, or to those of the era in which they committed their crimes (secondarily, how do you adjudicate the risk to the public posed by a 48-year-old whose offences were committed when he was 14?).<\/p>\n

It was pretty clear to Hale that \u201cyou cannot punish people other than the punishment that was appropriate at the time when they did the deeds\u201d, she agreed with the sitting judge. The matter of tariffs per se is more complicated: sentences have gone up for sex offences, maybe because we \u201cappreciate the harm\u201d more, but there\u2019s a potential for counter-productivity there, which they\u2019ve been thrashing out since the 70s. \u201cWhen I was a second-wave feminist, there was quite an argument about whether the tariff for rape should go up. A lot of people said rape is not taken as seriously as it should be. The counter argument was, with the sort of offences where there\u2019s a slight \u2018There, but for the grace of God, go I\u2019 element \u2013 people can\u2019t imagine robbing a bank, but they could imagine being accused of rape \u2013 the longer the sentence, the more reluctant the jury may be to convict.\u201d<\/p>\n

In employment law, \u201cthe more rights you give workers, the more ways the world of work is going to find for getting work out of people without actually giving them any<\/em> rights\u201d. Even while we naturally have our human rights \u2013 as children, as disabled people, as LGBTQ+ people, as women, as workers, as patients \u2013 the law can enforce the fairness a society has laid down, but there\u2019s a bracing limit to how much it can make things fairer.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Hale at home in Yorkshire.<\/span> Photograph: Florence Law\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Back to sentencing, though, because tariffs have gone up for everything. That\u2019s \u201cthe main reason for the surge in the prison population\u201d, she says, and it\u2019s been a ratchet effect. \u201cThere are politicians, clearly, who want to be seen as tough on crime. There\u2019s a public perception that there\u2019s more crime than there actually is. There are certainly pressures from the media which the politicians pay attention to. And there will be other reasons as well, which have led to a relentless upping of the tariff, across the board.\u201d All of which would be fine, if that same pressure and political posturing went into investment in prisons, but of course it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

All the pride you might take and interest you might find in the nation\u2019s justice system are rooted in its transparency \u2013 you can actually see what\u2019s going on, for a change. Only one or two of the cases in Hale\u2019s book even have to be anonymised (those are ones heard in the family courts that concern children). That also means you can see what caused problems, and the overall picture is frankly depressing.<\/p>\n

So, in the benefits tribunals \u2013 Hale visits a court in Gray\u2019s Inn Road, London \u2013 there are two cases. In one, a teenager\u2019s care package has been reduced; in the other, a disabled man has had his benefits removed entirely. In both cases, their entitlement is restored. \u201cThis is not surprising given the evidence,\u201d Hale writes of the man, \u201c but why did it have to get this far?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, to put it simply, it\u2019s not a bug, it\u2019s a feature. Campaigners have been saying this for years, that local authorities and the Department for Work and Pensions make decisions against claimants that they know won\u2019t stand up in court, also knowing that the majority of people will be too exhausted to challenge them. Hale can\u2019t, as a judge, be either unaware of that or happy about it? \u201cI have no comment to make on that,\u201d she says, continuing, \u201cit used to be that both the tax people and the benefits people said: \u2018we want to collect exactly the right amount, not a penny more, not a penny less, and we want to pay exactly the right amount of benefit, not a penny more, not a penny less.\u2019 That was the mantra, and obviously it\u2019s the right one. I\u2019m not able to comment on whether more sinister things go on now.\u201d Then, exasperated, \u201cI\u2019m not in politics! You know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But politics just won\u2019t stop coming to her. Earlier this year, she appeared at a book festival with her daughter, Julia Hoggett, who is head of the London Stock Exchange. Hale made headlines again for saying that the supreme court\u2019s ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex \u201chas been misinterpreted\u2026 there\u2019s nothing in that judgment that says that you can\u2019t have gender neutral loos, as we have here in this festival.\u201d These are statements she stands by, even though you can see every sinew of her professional identity straining against backseat-driving the supreme court. Except, that\u2019s not what she was doing, Hale carefully explains. The topic came up when a trans woman in the audience made a remark that was very affecting. \u201cYou\u2019re saying the law\u2019s on our side, but it doesn\u2019t feel that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe supreme court dealt with it as a pure question of statutory construction,\u201d Hale says, \u201cand reached the conclusion that the Equality Act trumped the Gender Recognition Act. Now, the Equality Act allows for single-sex services, either separate but equal or separate and different. It allows for them, it doesn\u2019t mandate them. So there\u2019s nothing in that judgment that says anything about same-sex services. It doesn\u2019t say anything about public toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards. But it has been taken to mean something that I don\u2019t think it does mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many people have jumped on that supreme court ruling \u201cwith a sigh of relief\u201d, she says, \u201cand said, \u2018That toxic debate has been settled.\u2019 Of course it\u2019s not been settled.\u201d Again, I circle back to whether this is accident or design \u2013 this misinterpretation, from \u201csingle-sex spaces can exist\u201d to \u201cmust exist\u201d feels deliberate and political. \u201cYou have to get on with what\u2019s your<\/em> job,\u201d she says with heavy emphasis. \u201cYour<\/em> job is deciding who is right and who\u2019s wrong in the legal argument.\u201d I feel like one of those annoying rabbits, always popping up looking for lettuce.<\/p>\n

The funny thing is, you can tell from Hale\u2019s writing, even though there\u2019s no trace of flippancy in it, and from her conversation, even when you\u2019re getting on her nerves, that she has a keen and surprisingly dark sense of humour. \u201cAnybody who\u2019s been to a lecture that I\u2019ve given will have had a few laughs,\u201d she concedes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the cases are dark. Sometimes they\u2019re not so dark, when people actually get what they want out of the justice system.\u201d Does anybody ever truly get what they want? \u201cOne hundred per cent? No. The fact that you\u2019ve got to be there at all means there\u2019s a problem, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d For Brenda Hale, that\u2019s the appeal. \u201cYou must have got the message,\u201d she says, \u201cthat I do actually like legal problems.\u201d<\/p>\n