#Jonathan Sumption

[panicinthestudio]

Further reading:

HKFP: Canadian judge Beverley McLachlin to step down from top court in July – announced days after 2 UK judges quit, June 11, 2024

HKFP: Judges are experts in law, not politics, John Lee says after ex-top court justice calls Hong Kong ‘oppressive’, June 11, 2024

HKFP: UK judge says he did not quit top Hong Kong court sooner as he wanted ‘to see how things develop’ post-security law, June 13, 2024

[evidence-based-activism]

I remember you did a post on Lucy Letby a while back, it really is beginning to look like there may have been a miscarriage of justice :/

Hello!

For context, this is the post Anon is referring to.

So, I've just looked for any updates to the case and found some interesting articles [1-4].

First, apparently Dr. Shoo Lee, whose research was used by the prosecution to prove Letby committed murder, had the case brought to his attention and found that they "misinterpreted" his research. Given that it was a misrepresentation of his research that was used to convict her, it is perhaps unsurprising that he elected to volunteer to review the medical evidence behind the deaths of the children she was accused of murdering. [1-3]

After gathering 14 independent doctors ("of some of the most respected and experienced neonatal and pediatric specialists in the world") to serve as evaluators, their panel ultimately concluded "there was no medical evidence to support malfeasance causing injury in any of the 17 cases in the trial" explicitly stating "we did not find any murders." [4]

Between that, the explanation of why the statistical "evidence" used in the trial was essentially meaningless, the lack of eyewitnesses, and evidence of systemic failings at the hospital in question, there's a serious possibility that Letby was falsely convicted. An opinion which is apparently shared by a former UK Supreme Court judge. [5]

That being said, this technically does not prove her innocence, which would likely require another trial. Something that is – apparently –fairly unlikely to happen. [5]

Further, the mentioned review panel also found "errors in medical care" and "serious failings in the management of neonatal conditions" on the part of the hospital in question. They explicitly indicate that some of the deaths were preventable. In other words, Letby may not have been personally responsible for the deaths of these children, but there were serious issues with the care they received from the hospital. [4]

Hopefully, the UK justice system works as it is meant to and Letby is given a retrial.

References under the cut:

Specia, M. (2025, March 21). One Doctor’s Quest for the Truth About Convicted Killer Lucy Letby. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/world/europe/lucy-letby-nurse-murder.html

Casciani, D., & Humphries, J. (2025, February 4). Lucy Letby did not murder babies, claim medical experts. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgl5yyg1x6o

Ledwith, M. (2025, February 4). Lucy Letby: Panel says new evidence shows she ‘did not murder babies.’ https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/lucy-letby-new-evidence-appeal-ccrc-5t8ms8vwf

Specia, M. (2025, February 4). Top Doctors Question Conviction of ‘Killer Nurse’ in 7 Baby Deaths. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/world/europe/lucy-letby-nurse-uk-appeal-evidence.html

Sumption, J. (2025, March 30). Jonathan sumption: Why i believe lucy letby is probably innocent. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/jonathan-sumption-why-lucy-letby-innocent-znxqx78zh

[mariacallous]

Former Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption has warned that organisations are potentially misinterpreting the landmark ruling that defined women by biology earlier this week.

Lord Sumption told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme that, contrary to much of the commentary on the Supreme Court ruling, judges did not take a side and did not provide an obligation to create single sex spaces.

The ruling has been interpreted by many as an exclusion of trans women from single-sex women’s spaces.

The ruling followed a legal challenge against the Scottish government by the campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) over the definition of “woman” in Scottish legislation mandating 50 per cent female representation on public boards.

Lord Sumption’s comments come after Kishwer Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, suggested that she would pursue NHS trusts which did not protect single-sex wards.

Instead, Lord Sumption argued that while many have taken the ruling to mean that service providers are obliged to provide single-sex spaces based on biological sex, the ruling meant that excluding transgender people from single-sex spaces was allowed, and not a breach of the 2010 Equality Act.

He said: “That’s the main point, which I think has been misunderstood about this judgment. I think it’s quite important to note that you are allowed to exclude trans women from these facilities. But you are not obliged to do it.

[nanshe-of-nina]

Women’s History Meme || Mistresses (8/10) ↬ Odette de Champdivers (c. 1390 – c. 1425)

No one had expected Charles VI, frail in health and prematurely aged at fifty-four, to survive his vigorous young son-in-law. The French King had led a wretched existence since the treaty of Troyes, alternately secluded behind the gates of his palaces or carried about in Henry V’s baggage train to serve as a mascot for the dual monarchy. The English knew better than to humiliate a man whom his subjects both pitied and venerated. They allowed him an income which was adequate for his limited needs. They provided him with a dignified household in which all the principal offices were held by reliable Burgundian partisans. But apart from these, he had no courtiers and few companions. He still occasionally received ambassadors and participated in ceremonial occasions, public charades which the politicians exploited for their own purposes. The Queen occasionally joined him for these, but her time had passed. There was nothing left of their marriage. With Isabelle’s consent, Charles had been given a concubine years before, the petite reine’ Odette de Champdivers, a pretty young girl, formerly a lady in waiting to the Duchess of Brittany, with whom he had at least one child. Charles remained a pathetic figure. He passed his days locked up in his rooms when he was undergoing a psychotic episode, or playing paume and board games with his pages and hunting or pulling a bow at the butts when he was fit enough. The occasional opinions attributed to him suggest that he had just enough wit to understand the difference between his status and his power. — The Hundred Years’ War, Vol. 4: Cursed Kings by Jonathan Sumption

[beardedmrbean]

Hong Kong’s top court on Thursday overturned the conviction of three pro-democracy activists who had organised an annual vigil in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Chow Hang Tung, Tang Ngok Kwan, and Tsui Hon Kwong were convicted and sentenced to four and a half months in prison in 2023 for failing to comply with the police demand for data under the city’s national security law. The trio had denied the allegations after Hong Kong authorities accused them of being “foreign agents”.

The trio – members of the disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China – were arrested during Beijing’s crackdown on the city's pro-democracy movement.

The alliance was long known for organising candlelight vigils in the city on the anniversary of the Chinese military’s crushing of the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing. But it voted to disband in 2021 under the shadow of a sweeping national security law imposed by China.

Police had sought details about the group’s operations and finances in connection with alleged links to pro-democracy groups overseas. But the group refused to cooperate, insisting it was not.

Hong Kong was one of the few Chinese territories which commemorated the event until China imposed a new, stringent national security law in the wake of the pro-democracy protests, punishing acts of subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

Critics said the shutdown and the case showed that the former British colony’s Western-style civil liberties were shrinking despite promises they would be kept intact.

Judges at the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal on Thursday unanimously ruled in the trio's favour, adding that the lower courts “fell into error” in holding that it was sufficient merely that the police commissioner said he had reasonable grounds to believe the alliance was a foreign agent.

In a lower court trial, the appellants also took issue with crucial details that were redacted, including the names of groups that were alleged to have links with the alliance.

The judges ruled that by redacting the only potential evidential basis for establishing that the alliance was a foreign agent, the prosecution disabled itself from proving its case.

“Non-disclosure of the redacted facts in any event deprived the appellants of a fair trial,” they wrote. The trio have completed their prison terms under this case, however, Ms Chow is still behind bars awaiting a separate subversion case where she faces life in prison.

Mr Tang told reporters outside the court that he hoped the ruling proved that the alliance was not a foreign agent and that in the future they could prove that the 1989 movement was not a counter-revolutionary riot.

“Justice lives in people’s hearts. Regardless of the outcome, everyone knows the truth in their hearts,” he said. Ms Chow raised a victory sign as she was led away by corrections officers, while supporters clapped and congratulated her.

During an earlier hearing at the top court in January, Ms Chow, who represented herself, said her case highlighted what a police state is. “A police state is created by the complicity of the court in endorsing such abuses. This kind of complicity must stop now," she said.

Since the security law was introduced in 2020, several non-permanent overseas judges have quit the top court, raising questions over confidence in the city’s judicial system. In 2024, Jonathan Sumption quit his position and said the rule of law was profoundly compromised.

But chief justice Andrew Cheung in January said the judges' premature departures did not mean the judiciary's independence was weakening.

The annual vigil at Hong Kong’s Victoria Park was the only large-scale public commemoration of the June 4 crackdown on Chinese soil for decades. Thousands attended it annually until authorities banned it in 2020, citing anti-pandemic measures.

After Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, the park was occupied instead by a carnival organised by pro-Beijing groups. Those who tried to commemorate the event near the site were detained.

Ms Chow and two other former alliance leaders, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho, were charged with subversion in a separate case under the security law.

In a separate ruling on Thursday, judges at the top court dismissed jailed pro-democracy activist Tam Tak-chi’s bid to overturn his sedition convictions in a landmark case brought under a colonial-era law that was used to crush dissent.

Tam Tak-chi was the first person tried under the sedition law since the 1997 handover and was found guilty of 11 charges in 2022, including seven counts of “uttering seditious words”.

The activist argued that prosecutors needed to prove he intended to incite violence. The city authorities last year revamped the offence so it explicitly states that people can be convicted of sedition even if no intent to incite violence.

[wonder-worker]

It is not clear why the treaty of the fleurs de lys [between England and France] failed. But it is possible to guess. The most likely explanation is that John II’s councillors were appalled by what he had agreed at Villeneuve and made difficulties about the delivery of the security. In mid-July an English officer, Thomas Driffield, left England with sixty men-at-arms to take possession of Dun, Ainay and la Roche-sur-Yon. The story of his mission is unknown. But it is plain that it failed.

Then, early in September 1363, [Louis of Anjou, John II's second son and one of the signatories of the treaty, escaped from English captivity]. Anjou, an able and ambitious young man of twenty-four, had married for love (and without his father’s consent) a daughter of Charles of Blois shortly before he had surrendered as a hostage two years before. He had borne his captivity particularly ill. Like the other royal princes he was allowed to absent himself from Calais on his parole for up to three days at a time. He made use of the privilege to visit the shrine of Notre-Dame de Boulogne and to see his wife [Marie of Blois-Penthièvre] at his father-in-law’s castle of Guise. He decided not to return. It was an unusual event among those who were bound by the aristocratic code of honour. John II was furious. He summoned his errant son to a family conference at the town of Saint-Quentin. The prince, afraid that he would be arrested and forcibly returned to England, would only meet them in an open field some four miles from the walls. All their entreaties failed to move him. The treaty of the fleurs de lys was dead. Many in France must have been relieved.

—  Jonathan Sumption, The Hundred Years War, Volume 2: Trial by Fire (The Middle Ages Series)

[naija247new]

Rule by judges is not rule of law, by Chidi Odinkalu

“The judiciary has immense power. In the nature of things, judges cannot be democratically accountable for their decisions. It therefore matters very much that their role should be regarded as legitimate by the public at large.”— Jonathan Sumption, Law in a Time of Crisis, 121 (2021) FOR a cumulative period of 17 years between 1885 and 1905, Hardinge Giffard – who was better known as Lord…

[tommychook]

Jonathan Sumption: Why governments were wrong to fight Covid-19 with loc...

[justicenews247]

In a searing rejoinder to #JonathanSumption's recent Spectator article on leaving the #ECHR, #StuartWallace (@echrhawk) clears up some popular misunderstandings. @Con_Soc

In a searing rejoinder to Jonathan Sumption’s recent Spectator article on leaving the ECHR, Stuart Wallace (@echrhawk) clears up some popular misunderstandings. Read it now at: “Former supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption recently wrote a piece for the Spectator entitled, somewhat dramatically, “Judgment call: the case for leaving the ECHR”. In the piece, Sumption makes a series of points…

[espanolbot2]

He’s an anti-lockdown campaigner, to provide additional context to his comment.

[merelygifted]

Peer’s remark made to woman with bowel cancer during TV debate on Covid lockdowns

[zmkccommonplace]

My entire life has been a constant quest to take as little exercise as possible.

Jonathan Sumption talking to Giles Fraser on the Confessions podcast

[nanshe-of-nina]

Medieval Women Week || Favorite Queen or Queen-adjacent ↬ Jeanne “la Boiteuse” de Bourgogne

Philip VI’s relentless persecution of Robert of Artois long after the man had become a broken and impoverished exile is revealing of his character. No doubt much of the venom was due to the influence of the Queen (the Duke of Burgundy’s sister). Philip himself, although he was not by nature a vindictive man, was an extremely superstitious and unconfident one. He took most seriously the threats which Robert hurled at him from abroad to foment rebellion in France and to strike down his children by sorcery. — Trial by Battle: The Hundred Years War, vol. 1 by Jonathan Sumption Philip VI’s queen, Jeanne, was the sister of the duke of Burgundy and headed a faction at court. A contemporary chronicler wrote about her: “the lame Queen Jeanne de Bourgogne... was like a king and caused the destruction of those who opposed her will”. — The Valois: Kings of France, 1328–1589 by Robert J. Knecht

[freedomtotalk]

It's always so nice when someone you admire does not disappoint. Jonathan Sumption is a Remainer.

"For Sumption, there are no easy answers. But “my view is that we need another referendum. I am opposed to referendums as such, because I think the political process is a valuable source of compromise, and I was opposed to this referendum because there were too many answers to the question posed other than ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

But “it seems to me that having had one of them, and ended up in the current insufferable situation, it may well be that the only way out which both sides should ultimately accept as legitimate is to have another. How else can we answer the vital questions left unanswered in 2016… The British people have never been asked what our relationship with the EU should be if we leave. It would have been difficult to ask them in 2016, because at that time we had no idea what terms would be available and what problems would arise. We have a very clear idea of that now."

In case you are not aware of Jonathan Sumption, check him out in this video, where he brings reason and clarity to an inane conversation with Baldrick from Blackadder on the subject of the Da Vinci Code. He starts on minute 28:15.

“The Real Da Vinci Code with Tony Robinson“

[wonder-worker]

"Within the French political community Louis of Anjou was one of the most persistent and resourceful enemies of the settlement of 1360 with England. He had borne with extreme resentment his time as a hostage in England. Edward III never allowed him to forget the circumstances of his escape. ‘A shame on his honour and on the reputation of his whole family’, was what the English King had said about him in appealing to the peerage of France. Perhaps for this reason there was always an element of personal venom in his dealings with the English."

— Jonathan Sumption

Listen, this dude just wanted to enjoy his honeymoon in peace and was instead forced to go to England as a hostage for years to make up for his father’s blunders and cement a humiliating treaty that literally nobody wanted. I would be pissed too.

[lightdancer1]

The Albigensian Crusade is one of the more important and the more neglected wars of the medieval era:

This book serves as a companion to the other book on the Occitan War (that conveniently skipped over the bits with the two French kings providing the first steps to the territorial linkage of what's now southern France with the northern part). That book opened and rightly so the idea of examining the concept of heresy based on actual evidence.....and yet even it has to concede that there was a select group of elites who had a kind of Gnostic aspect to their appeal and most bluntly rejected entirely the authority of the Pope and the bishops. This, more than anything else, was the real seed of the heresy and of the bloodthirsty war that followed.

In the annals of Crusading the Albigensian Crusade rivals that of the Northern Crusades for often being overlooked and yet for being one of the most revealing examples. In a sequence of bloody battles and sieges the so-called Cathars were brought to heel and then exterminated by the rise of the medieval Inquisition, which did not target witches but heretics and Jewish people at that time.

In the annals, too, of medieval civilization the Albigensian Crusade marks like the Northern Crusades a point of transition, where older entities ground against the first steps of what history would show were new paths. The establishment of a French monarchy that ruled more of France than the King of England did, the first of the many steps to imploding the various languages and cultures in the soft genocidal policies of the French state that rendered those languages and cultures all but extinct.

This war also points to the reality that medieval Crusades were international enterprises by the standard of the time in theory but in practice in Europe itself were neatly folded into statebuilding in all its unholy and bloodstained paths. There is no bloodless rise of the state, only a set of choices of very specific horrors.

And it's almost an ironic afterthought that the most famous leader of this crusade would be overshadowed by his son Simon de Montfort of the same name, the man who was a prototype of Oliver Cromwell in the eyes of Whig historians and in reality every bit the avid empire and statebuilder his father was with shorter successes and mostly a bloodied speedbump in the career of Edward I Longshanks, the warrior-king who for a time virtually united Britain until his son took over and wrecked his successes by incompetence.

7/10.