The Coconut Trial

There are occasions when a single act of public authority suffices to expose our institutions as both cruel and absurd. The prosecution of Marieha Hussain, a teacher who was charged with a racially aggravated public order offence, for holding a placard, is one such instance; and though Ms Hussain has happily been acquitted, it is shameful that she was even brought to trial.

Observe the majesty of the laws of England: a pregnant woman attends a protest, holding a sign which she has not the least idea could be illegal; the protest is directed against the Government’s policy of aiding Israel in the commission of war crimes: the police do not trouble themselves one jot to halt the State’s plausible complicity in genocide, but they do very usefully employ their time in searching the internet for images and videos of citizens protesting against the crime, perhaps checking the relevant far Right blogs to snare their targets; a picture of Ms Hussain is acquired by this method, and is uploaded to the police’s social media, where she is called the suspect of a hate crime; the image obtains a wide currency, and soon Ms Hussain’s name is revealed, and she apprehends for the first time that she may have offended against the law; the tabloids begin to pry into the details of Ms Hussain’s private life, and publish information about both her and her family; Ms Hussain is fired from her occupation; she is charged months after being questioned by police, and waits several more months before attending her two-day trial, at the conclusion of which, she is found not guilty; and all this exposes Ms Hussain and her family to reputational and pecuniary loss, as well as enormous anxiety and distress. 

What, then, was the grave act that Ms Hussain committed? What is it that warrants this ordeal? (for the notion that the Law is bad cannot enter our consideration). Ms Hussain compared Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, the former prime minister and home secretary, to coconuts—white on the inside, and brown on the outside. I do not know if either of those great characters ever saw the placard in question; but imagine, intrepid reader, that they did! What horror must have washed over them!—what shattering of their self-esteem!—what irreparable despair must even now cloud their days, to see their faces planted together at the bottom of a coconut palm! Nay, there are some injuries that even the most hardened politicians cannot bear, and being called a coconut must, indeed, be numbered among them! Yes, we may be assured that however much pain has accumulated in the recent life of Ms Hussain, it weighs as but a feather by the agonies that Mr Sunak and Mrs Braverman must have endured, when they saw that placard—on the hypothesis that they have, in fact, seen it.

This ridiculous episode can at least serve as instruction in the defects of what is called Justice in this country. First, there is the prosecution of an act involving no assignable injury to anyone. Good laws only punish those acts which are genuinely mischievous; and the infliction of punishment for reasons other than repressing actual wrongdoing, is so much waste: waste in expense of time and money, and waste in aid of serious crimes, which we might have used our resources to curb. Injustice is then laid atop the waste, because all punishment is the infliction of pain, and all pain is an evil, and can only justly be inflicted for the prevention of greater evils. The prosecution averred that “coconut” is a racial slur, and that Ms Hussain ought, therefore, to be convicted. But a racial slur must carry a pejorative imputation against a group as a whole: that is what distinguishes such slurs from the many other sorts of pejorative names. Now is it really believed, that a woman who herself belongs to a racial minority, intended to impute anything derogatory to the racial identities of Mr Sunak and Mrs Braverman? The suggestion is absurd: Ms Hussain censured the particular conduct of those functionaries: she made no attack on their identities or their races. “Coconut” is, indeed, a censorious word; but that does not make it a slur, any more than “fool” or “scoundrel”. We must further consider that Mr Sunak and Mrs Braverman are politicians: their destiny is to be criticised, justly or unjustly; for “censure is the tax paid for eminence”. That the State would intervene to punish the citizens of this country for censuring elected representatives, is a declaration of war against democracy—a declaration of war against good government itself. Ministers must bear such censure, or there is no chance of government improving: the defects of our institutions and representatives will forever be hidden, and the people will suffer the evils of misrule by infallible consequence. Any law that could lead to the persecution of such political speech, is a bad law. 

Then there is the failure of the legislature to diffuse a tolerably broad knowledge of the law: there are countless statutes, and so many offences contained within them, which will never come to a citizen’s attention in the course of ordinary life, and which cannot be surmised by common sense. The legal education of the layperson begins when the police announce that they are a suspect; when a knock comes unexpectedly at the door; and when they finally end up in court, and suffer the mass of vexation, expense, and delay for which courts are notorious. It is the diploma in law, taught by the school of handcuffs and steel bars. Think how many offences would be prevented—think how much might be saved in expense of money and time—if the legislature worked to make the law comprehensible to the people who are expected to follow it. It is vain to urge that our laws are published online, and that ignorance is no excuse: the laws are themselves replete with technical language; they are at many points ambiguous; they are constantly being amended; and they are nearly impossible to master without specialised instruction: or else why do we retain that tedious tribe whom we call lawyers? The first security against crime is, to make it known what acts are offences; and a legislature that fails in this, fails in one of its most fundamental tasks.

It will, perhaps, be said, that the law is not so defective as it has here been depicted: Ms Hussain was found not guilty in the end, and the danger, therefore, is less great than it appears. The error of this plea, is to suppose that the defendant who has been acquitted, has not been punished. Nothing could be more false. Prosecution, under our glorious laws, is punishment: punishment in the shape of expense, vexation, delay, injury to reputation, injury to income, loss of privacy, and so many other sources of pain and anxiety. The judge’s pronouncement of “not guilty” does not erase one speck of the suffering to which the defendant is thus exposed: what’s done cannot be undone, and no efficacious remedy exists. Under a just system of law, prosecution would not be so destructive to a person: it would be marked by the suspension of judgment; it would reflect the presumption of innocence; and if acquitted, the defendant would return to normal life without difficulty. That is not our practice: prosecution is simply a lesser punishment—not so bad as prison, but a punishment nonetheless; and all those who might have been disposed to satirise and condemn our ministers, may well be deterred from doing so, knowing the trouble that might befall them. I venture to say, if such radicalism is permissible, that the law is not the true embodiment of everything that is excellent.