Judiciary lambasted by Tory press

BY PHILIP WADE AND ALEX MITCHELL WITH UNACCUSTOMED frankness sections of the Tory press have taken to berating the judiciary for its handling of the docks crisis.

The spectacle of the newspapers lashing the judges-albeit with ermine whips-is unprecedented. It should be noted, however, that the press is not complaining about the judgements of the courts. They simply want the judiciary to act more cleanly, more efficiently.

The clumsy manoeuvring week brings the law into editorial writers argue.

If there has got to be backroom legal ing and dealing, please do it discreetly. Fleet Street's message to the law men.

And certainly the advice is not misplaced ...from the bourgeoisie's point of view. Since the dockers were first jailed, the crusty corridors of the inns of court and the House of Lords have been afire with comings and goings of a historic order.

The crucial times in the calendar of events are these: • On Tuesday afternoon the Official Solicitor visited the jailed dockers at Pentonville. • He did not immediately apply to • the NIRC because of "technical and procedural reasons' • He didn't even go to court on Wednesday morning. • He waited until 3 p.m.-a couple of hours after the House of Lords judgement on the container blacking case. • When he appeared before the NIRC he partly based his application for release of the dockers on the House of Lords judgement.

Or the nea flurry of events, now for some This is the bare bones of the Apparently it was known on Tuesday, at least in legal circles, that the House of Lords' judgement on the responsibility of the Transport and General Workers' Union for its members' actions was to be made on There had obviously been something of a rush to get it ready, although the world at large did not yet know the judgement was about to be delivered.

Some law students at the NIRC on Wednesday who had been following the case closely as part of their studies had been expecting the judgement on Friday at the earliest.

On Wednesday morning Press Association put out news that judgement was to be that day, although no time vas given.

Knew result A phone call to the House of Lords produced a time of 12 noon. But on arrival at 11.50 a.m., the Workers Press reporter was promptly told the judgement was now to be at 12.30 p.m.

Yet we and other reporters assembled in the House of Lords lobby for the judgement to begin already knew the result. There was ample confirmation from solicitors and counsel from both sides that the decision had gone against the T&GWU.

It is not too difficult to argue from the fact that if everyone knew the decision that morning, Lord Denning, Sir John Donaldson and the Official Solicitor knew the night before.

A few minutes before the judgement, a bundle of duplicated copies of the findings were brought out and handed to the press.

They had been run off in haste. On page 27 a whole paragraph had been scored out by pencil marks and reporters told would like information abou THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE Fill in the form below and, send to NATIONAL SECRETARY, SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE, 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST, LONDON, SW4 7UG. Name Address over the past discredit, wheelThat's How the dockers were released to ignore the content. were gaps between some some words and large breaks between paragraphs.

'The Guardian' correspondent said yesterday: "The House of Lords' judgement was so rushed that there was not even time to print it in the ordinary way.' The National Industrial Relations Court began hearing the application from the Official Solicitor at precisely 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, judgement atternoon. after the became known to the world.

It was also, incidentally, timed to commence-whether by accident or design-after the meeting of the TUC General Council which called the one-day General Strike.

Despite the Lords' judgement, however, 'The Guardian' legal correspondent Michael Zander argues that there was no basis in law for releasing the five jailed dockers. The NIRC's explanation is described as 'manifestly defective'.

It 'left completely unexplained how the court could in good conscience release men imprisoned for contempt who remained totally unrepentant'.

Said Sir John Donaldson in the NIRC's judgement: "This court has not asked or expected these men to apologize and they have not done so.' And later: 'Furthermore they have given no assurance that they will observe the truce for the future. They would have us believe nothing has changed.' Then after talking about the Lords' decision and the Joneswords some Aldington report, said 'a fresh start should now be made' He went out of his way to tell the men he was about to free that they wouldn't be going to jail again, even if they went back to blacking the Midland Cold Storage depot in East London.

All that would happen is that *they would stand condemned by their own actions' as men bent on the 'destruction' of among other things 'the rule of law'.

'For the reasons which we have given and just before we returned to court to give them, we ordered the immediate release of these men from custody, he concluded.

Discussions In these troubled tin les you can always rely on evealing quotation from 'City Pre iss', the weekly newspaper of City of London.

Its front-page lead article declares: 'Easy docks solution bungled - High Court judges scared.' 'High court judges are wildly alarmed at judges being drawn into politics through Industrial Relations Court decisions and appeals. Sir John Donaldson had long discussions with Lord Denning and other High Court judges on Tuesday after the Official Solicitor made application for an urgent hearing to get the five dockers released.' News of this secret meeting between Donaldson and Denning will be of great interest to dockers and other workers who have been fed on Tory propaganda about the independence of the judiciary.

In 'The Guardian' there is further information about Denning's role:

'It is confirmed that the Court of Appeal, over which he was presiding, unexpectedly journed at 12.25 p.m. on Tuesday until after lunch. Lord Denning's clerk has told me that he is not at liberty to disclose the reason for this unusual occurrence.

It is also confirmed that the Official Solicitor, Mr Norman Turner, saw Lord Del nning in connection with the c. ase, the paper's legal correspons lent said yesterday.

The 'New Statesman' was even more outspoken about legal shenanigans:

'The basic cynicism of the court's workings could hardly stand more blatantly revealed than they now do.

'At least now it is self-evident that it was sheer hypocrisy for Mr Maurice Macmillan to bumble on about the impossibility of the exeCulIve reverse a decision by executive interferin judiciary in order to spring the dockers: such a move, said the Secretary for Employment on Monday, would be undermining the whole basis of the British constitution. Yet who now believes that the court surrendered to anything else but a political imperative?' In a special edition of BBC's •Panorama' on Thursday night, Jack Jones, the T&GWU general secretary, made allegations which clearly rocked interviewer Robin Day.

Jones claimed that the House of Lords judgement had not treated his union fairly. They had not had sufficient time to present their case. Furthermore, he was calling for an official inquiry into the conduct of the five Law Lords.

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AMAl DDI Amour1 enclosed f Return to Con Clancy carried shoulder high after his release from Pentonville on Wednesday picket CON CLANCY, one of the five dockers released from jail on Wednesday, was back on picket outside the Midland Cold Storage depot yesterday.

With him was Ted Hedges, one of the seven men originally named in the stop-picketing order of the National Industrial Relations Court but not sent to A spokesman for the dockers said: 'The picketing goes on."

NIRC president Sir John Donaldson said on Wednesday that the Law Lords had reinforced the court's original view that the Transport and General Workers' Union was responsible for the actions of its The primary method of enforcement of the Act was against the funds of organizations rather than individuals, he said.

The pickets have been outside the depot for ten weeks.

Midland Cold Storage, losing £2,000 a week, is expected to start laying off the first of its 57strong work force in the next few days.

The Midland directors were meeting yesterday to consider possible new legal moves. They could not apply for an order against the T&GWU.

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