When a juror was sworn in on a cupful of water from the Roding he made modern history
he barrister Paul Powlesland, who has acted for climate protesters, was called to jury service last week, and made judicial history by takingon the thing most holy to him – not an ancient book, but a cupful of water from his local river in north-east London: “I swear by the River Roding, from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames,” he said, “that I will faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence.
Powlesland explained that he wanted to promote the idea of the sacredness of nature, and its place in the legal system. “I hope that many others follow suit,” he said, “andIn fact, the practice has the oldest of precedents. The first recorded oaths in western literature were made by the Homeric gods, who were, you will recall, in the habit of swearing on the waters of River Styx.
At her sham of a trial, Skochilenko, then 33, asked: “How fragile must the prosecutor’s belief in our state and society be, if he thinks that our statehood and public safety can be brought down by five small pieces of paper?” Her release guarantees that those five pieces of paper will not be forgotten.
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