Hard cases make bad law.
The above maxim is one of very few I remember from three years ‘studying’ Jurisprudence when I was less than half the age I am now – the law’s gain was racing journalism’s loss – but it has direct relevance to the Christophe Soumillon case. Squinting back to the boozy haze of my student days, I can just about make out the late Lord Denning, who was Master Of The Rolls in the Court of Appeal.
Not only did Denning have a voice that made him a soundalike for George, the affable pink hippo from Rainbow, but he had an instinctive sympathy for the underdog. This – the instinctive sympathy, not the voice that sounded like George from Rainbow – made Denning a good man but a bad lawyer.
