Hakeem al-Araibi is failed by ‘perfect’ legal systems and ‘equity’: Only humanity can set him free
- The jailed Bahraini refugee player does not deserve to be behind bars and the people who helped put him there know it
The professor is explaining to his slightly sceptical students why English law is “perfect”. The concept of “equity” and its maxims, he says, allows context and circumstances to soften what can often be rigid constructs and therefore benefit an individual whose “crime” may have been the result of events beyond his or her control or, indeed, never a crime in the first place.
Some students lapped it up, some wondered how often in the history of English law, in its source country and colonies, had equity saved an innocent person from being sent to jail or even from execution.
Maybe the professor is correct. Theoretically, equity is possibly a viable safeguard. Perhaps at fault is its application by humans. The absence of humanity.
The family of Derek Bentley may agree. The slightly mentally disabled Englishman shouted “let him have it!” to Christopher Craig on a South London rooftop in 1952 before the latter gunned down policeman Sidney Miles.
Did Bentley, 19, mean shoot him or was he telling Craig to give Miles the gun? The court found him guilty of being a partner in murder and hanged him while the boy who pulled the trigger, at 16, was too young to be put to death.
Could a bit of equity have saved Bentley? Or was humanity needed?