Rule of Law

Today a former UK Cabinet minister and his ex wife have been sent to prison.
For anyone not familiar with the story, bad luck, it really has been a great one. The cabinet minister (Chris Huhne, who very nearly became leader of his party and therefore could have been deputy prime minister now) was caught driving in excess of the speed limit. In the UK we have a system where you can get points on your driving licence for an offence. And offence like this is three points (plus a fine etc.) 12 points will result in being banned from driving (for a year, perhaps).

So Mr Huhne asked his wife (Vicky Pryce) to say she had been driving. Which she did. I am not so clear on the why. Perhaps he had 9 points already and was therefore heading for a ban (points always seem to come in multiples of three) or, being environment secretary at the time, perhaps he found burning all that fuel a bit embarrassing. Whatever. They did it.

Naughty, naughty. This is an offence called perverting the course of justice, and is much more serious than driving a bit fast. But it can be easily imagined that many married couples have tried it on before. The idea of the points system is you get a chance to modify your driving, don't get banned for every mistake. While it is wrong there are still only a total of 24 points available.  So you can't really carry on with absolute abandon. Points expire after three years (I think).

Then, silly boy, Mr Huhne went and screwed around. And, even worse, told his wife it was all over. Not clever. Many men may be able to persuade their wife to take three points. Many other men may get out of a 26 year marriage unscathed. Trying for both is pushing it.

So Ms Pryce went to the papers.

Mr Huhne tried to have the proceedings stopped. He tried to brazen it out, saying it really didn't happen. But Ms Pryce had entrapped him. She had got a load of emails and recorded conversations (at the behest of the journalist who she gave the story to, and who promised she would get away with it). It was clear they had conspired together to do this. And the court had the evidence. They got it from the journalist and it incriminated both of them.

So, before he got to court, Mr Huhne changed his plea to guilty. Finally reality dawned. Mr Huhne emerges from this with almost no credit, but in a relative sense at least, when push came to shove, he realised that he did the crime so would have to serve the time.

Ms Pryce on the other hand pleaded not guilty due to 'marital coercion'. This is a medieval defence which claims that the husband 'forced' the wife to take the points. It really didn't stack up. I had never even heard of this until now. Ridiculous.

The journalist (Isabel Oakeshott), meanwhile, for the sake of a story, took poor Ms Pryce for a ride and dumped her at the gates of jail. Seems like Mr Huhne and Ms Oakeshott have something in common.

There is one real important lesson. It is we still have the rule of law in the UK (for politicians at least). Mr Huhne was not able to stop the proceedings against him. He could not brazen his way through. There was clear evidence that he and Ms Pryce swapped points, it was put before a jury, he is now in prison. Likewise for Ms Pryce. She wanted revenge, very understandably. She really could finish her ex husband by exposing this conspiracy, the problem was she was also a part of the criminality. Exposing Mr Huhne's criminal behaviour necessarily involved exposing her own. No way out, before a jury and prison for her too.

Both these people thought the law somehow did not apply in their case. Both were proven wrong.

Some people might claim that there are other lessons, such as 'never trust a journalist' or 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'. Those things were, for me at least, already obvious.

Anyway, what a relief! All we need now is to lock up some bankers and a few newspaper executives and we will be close to getting back on track with rule of law.

In the US at least (according to Attorney General Eric Holder) there is still much work to be done on that. Banks have moved on from being to big to fail to too big to jail.