Why we need to worry about the court of public opinion

So, the government has got itself into another bind over the banks, this time over the thorny issue of a very large pension received by the recently deposed Chief Executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, Fred Goodwin, or Fred the Shred as he is known in the city due to his fondness for cost cutting.

Now the main issues of the rights and wrongs are explored in other blog posts. However something was said this week by a government minister that should have caused concern to everyone who heard it. The background to the comment came after the government said that it was exploring all legal avenues to claw back some of the pension payments due to Mr Goodwin. Over the following days the forcefulness of these statements seemed to dwindle as lawyers one by one told the Government that the contract was watertight, and there would be very little legal scope for reclaiming any monies.

Harriet Harman then appeared on TV and came out with the following "The prime minister has said that it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted," she added "And it might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that is where the government steps in."

Now put to one side for the moment, the rights and wrongs of whether Fred should receive this rather generous payout, and instead think about what she is actually saying. It is that if a case is tried in a court of law, and the result is against popular opinion, then the judgement should be overturned by the 'court of public opinion'.

Well, we may as do away with these expensive court buildings and judges with their silly wigs if that is the case. We should instead use the power of public opinion. Perhaps we could harness technology and the case for the prosecution and defence could be aired on tv, even hosted by Ant and Dec. We could then phone in and vote for whether we think they are guilty or innocent and national newspapers could offer their invaluable and impartial opinion in special pullouts.

The point is, that if public opinion is allowed to overule contractual law then where does it stop? Do we force footballers to hand over their fortunes because we all think they earn too much? and where do we start with lawyers?

Never forget that public opinion led to the burning of suspected witches, mobs running through the street with pitchforks and Michelle McManus winning Pop Idol.......

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