The Secret Barrister
'An anonymous barrister writes a powerfully honest, provocative and moving first-hand account of life in the legal system and how it's failing us all "I'm a barrister, a job which requires the skills of a social worker, relationship counsellor, arm-twister, hostage negotiator, named driver, bus fare-provider, accountant, suicide watchman, coffee-supplier, surrogate parent and, on one memorable occasion, whatever the official term is for someone tasked with breaking the news to a prisoner that his girlfriend has been diagnosed with gonorrhoea." Welcome to the world of the Secret Barrister. These are the stories of life inside the courtroom. They are sometimes funny, often moving and ultimately life-changing.How can you defend a child-abuser you suspect to be guilty? What do you say to someone sentenced to ten years who you believe to be innocent? What is the law and why do we need it? And why do they wear those stupid wigs? From the criminals to the lawyers, the victims, witnesses and officers of the law, here is the best and worst of humanity, all struggling within a broken system which would never be off the front pages if the public knew what it was really like. Both a searing first-hand account of the human cost of the criminal justice system, and a guide to how we got into this mess, The Secret Barrister wants to show you what it's really like and why it really matters.
Stats for nerds
13recommend
19mentions
16people
2018–2025years
79% recommend21% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Disclosure in the UK (as it’s called) is a bit different from discovery in the states, but serves largely the same function.
I googled a bit to find a decent guide and found one on the HSE’s website: https://www.hse.gov.uk/enforce/enforcementguide/pretrial/aft...
Unfortunately in real life disclosure is one of the many places that the criminal justice system tends to fail to meet its stated ideals. Disclosure is often served late or improperly on run-of-the-mill cases from what I’ve heard and read. There’s a great book called the Secret Barrister that goes into some detail about the UK’s (or England and Wales more specifically) criminal justice system from quite a critical lens.
- > But he did sign the standard SPM contract, which once Horizon arrived, did make him legally responsible
Oh I didn't realise Bates' had his hand forced. They way the ITV documentary framed it he spotted the trap, so they terminated his contract.
> can the court system afford the huge retrial
No. Truth is, it's in ruins. Have you ever read The Secret Barrister's "How The Law Is Broken"? Very good imho.
I'm betting on a surprise Royal pardon, In fact I'm holding my popcorn for King Charlie pulling some outrageous stuff on his last legs, god blessim.
- Sad but true. Anyone wanting to learn more about how dysfunctional the UK's justice system is after years of underfunding should read Secret Barrister[1]. For comfortable technology folks who seldom brush with the law it's eye-opening stuff.
- I wish that were the only cause of miscarriages of justice in the UK... The whole British justice system is now beyond farcical. A quick read of The Secret Barrister [1] will leave one despairing for the state of the country.
[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law-Broken...
- This looks awesome, but is a short book much too big to digest in one sitting.
It seems full of quite original thought.
Yet at the same time, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Mill, Redbeard, Rand, Machiavelli, Schmitt, Posner, and most of the important thinkers on jurisprudence seem absent.
From the first few dozen paragraphs I get an impression the author has a narrow understanding of the "rule of law" - as a pragmatist - as opposed to the "Rule of Law" (capitalised) as a principle.
There's plenty of books on how the law fails to live up to its promise. To pick one at random see The Secret Barrister: Why the Law is Broken [1] (which is an amazing read!)
However, that is to miss a central philosophical principle, which I would say is something like this:
The Rule of Law is that faith we put in the law _even though_ we KNOW it is imperfect, biased, inconsistent and run by fallible humans. We are not unaware of the contradiction. The contradiction is central to the principle.
https://thesecretbarrister.com/2018/06/17/the-big-issue-why-...
- Quite - the criminal justice system is woefully underfunded and COVID has only exacerbated the problem. The means testing leaves many people facing no choice but to plead guilty or risk bankruptcy.
This book is a chilling insight into the state of criminal justice: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law-Broken...
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