LondonJohn
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- May 12, 2010
- Messages
- 21,458
Makes sense - I wonder if this "judicial truths" thing has been a guilter-peddled red herring from the start (I feel like I've mixed metaphors there somewhere, oh well).
The Dewani trial is an interesting comparison. Three or four (I lose count) people were convicted of murder in conspiracy with Dewani and were even given reduced sentences for testifying against him. Dewani's trial didn't get past the halfway-way mark, but the convictions and sentences of the others don't seem to be in question. If anything, that "judicial truth" should be even more problematic because it's more specific; no one else could possibly be substituted for Dewani whereas here, in theory others could have acted with Guede.
(Good to see you back, btw!)
That's a good point. Those convicted in the Dewani case were essentially convicted on the premise of being hired hitmen, were they not?
I think the problem in the Kercher case is that the Italian justics system has got itself crazily tied up through its nuts constitutional rule that "judicial truths" can never be contradicted in different SC rulings - and that if they are contradicted, then the previous source of the contradiction (in this instance, Guede's conviction) has to be revisited in order to be able to tally the SC rulings.
What clearly needs to happen in Italy on the back of the Kercher case fiasco (among many other constitutional and institutional changes) is that the Constitutional Court urgently needs to change the rules, such that SC judgements can indeed be in contradiction, given that the evidence before the courts in each case might be very different. I think that the problem here again goes back to the legacy of the inquisitorial civil system of justice in Italy, where the role of the courts was to establish "the truth".
