For how many seasons are you?

LAW. SOCIETY. The rule of law, or mob rule?

Things are hotting up. Mr Trump’s bodyguards are threatening armed resistance in America. And, in Britain, Mr Johnson’s mounting a full frontal attack on those who mounted a full frontal attack on him for mounting a full frontal attack on Covid regulations that he’d introduced to mount a full frontal attack on people who spread viruses.

In Belgium, too, it’s not only the weather that’s hotting up. The courts have sent two guys to prison for ten years for running a drugs trade (other than under the flag of a pharmacy). They were convicted on appeal, having been acquitted for lack of evidence at first instance, after the police suddenly realised they had evidence against them that was obtained a year before they were initially tried, and that they had somehow omitted to adduce at trial. So, the prosecution appealed, and, at last, adduced the evidence and nailed the guys. Now, they’re off to the klink, and the Keystone Cops will be having a party tonight to celebrate a great victory for justice, in full contravention of the non bis idem principle of double jeopardy. Well, it’s only fair: if the prosecution gets two bites at the cherry, then, of course, the defendants get two chances at defending themselves. Meanwhile, a band of 18 students who procured a man’s death each get 200 or so hours of “forced labour”. Since there aren’t that many quarries left in Belgium, that generally means picking up litter.

Drugs are a big problem here, because drugs gangs are getting bolder. Here, they fire-bomb their enemies’ houses; in Amsterdam, up the road, they decapitate rival gang members and dump the head in front of their friends’ homes. Toffs’ kids killing young students aren’t that much of a problem, so far as I know, so they get off lightly. So, what can we do about all that?

The toffs’ kids all have names that no one is allowed know. And, so, what we’re doing about that is prosecuting bloggers who reveal their names. Really, that’s what they’re wanting to do.

And the drugs gangs we’re putting in our overcrowded jails and fining 200,000 euros. Which just goes to show how lucrative the drugs trade is (if you seek a destructive profession that pays and isn’t in oil & gas). The mob will be happy tonight that drugs lords are behind bars. And the mob will be happy that Mr Trump is being prosecuted and that Mr Johnson is out of office. One mob here is a bit unhappy at litter-picking as a penalty for causing death. But, on the whole, as long as the mob’s happy, everyone’s happy. It’s after all a Benthamite principle.

The Internet created virtual mobs with very real power. And the Jack Cades of this world are rousing them with talk of the rule of law, and getting them to wittingly and willingly forget why we even have a rule of law. Constitutions displayed in gilt frames and crammed with highfalutin, inspirational sentiments that pour out musically from national anthems adorn the hallways and vestibules of palaces and parliaments up and down the world. But they inspire not those who have hung them. Instead, they may as well have hanged them, just like the mobs who selectively peruse them, to perform their own hangings.

What we ought to be doing about all of this is what we’ve always done with criminals: we gather evidence that we think proves guilt, try the defendant and then convict where there is no reasonable doubt that they are guilty. Isn’t that it? The rule of law? Isn’t that what we fight to preserve in our democracies? Isn’t that what Ukraine is fighting for?

Ukraine is fighting for its survival, to be frank, and whether it is fighting for freedom and democracy is something we simply don’t know at this stage. They say they are, but whether they in fact are, depends on (a) whether they win and (b) whether they do in fact pursue a line of freedom and democracy once they have won. But it’s too early to tell. Just like it was too early in January 2022 to tell whether Russia would invade them. Russia said it wouldn’t but it did invade, so perhaps Ukraine will be free and democratic, as it says it will be, and perhaps it’ll turn tail once it has an upper hand, whatever that is.

Meanwhile, if the Ukrainians have a crystal-clear picture of what freedom and democracy are, here, in the free, democratic west, in the US, Britain and Belgium, we’re starting to lose sight of what they are. In the US, we try ex-presidents by public clamour pitted against armed bodyguards. In Britain, we fire prime ministers and then they come back after demitting office to proclaim their innocence. And, in Belgium, we convict drugs gang leaders at a second attempt, and let off with litter-picking those who procure deaths. The rule of law that stood us in such good stead for so long is now being eroded by the very people who want to uphold it as the holy grail of their prosecutions. But at least they’re getting all the bad guys. It is the bad guys they’re getting, isn’t it? We think so, but do we know so? All of them?

“And when the last law was down and the devil turned on you, where would you hide then, Roper, the laws all lying flat? This country is planted with laws, Man’s laws, from coast to coast and, if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — do you think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the devil benefit of law: for my own safety’s sake.” Sir Thomas More, A Man For All Seasons. He was a good guy, a saint, no less. He was executed, at law.

For how many seasons are you?