经济学人34:自由捍卫者汤姆·宾翰

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　　讣告；宾翰勋爵；自由捍卫者汤姆·宾翰（康希尔的宾翰男爵）于9月11日逝世，享年76岁；

　　By general agreement, he was the greatest English judge since the second world war: the only man in the modern age to be, in short order, Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice (head of the judiciary in England and Wales) and senior law lord in the House of Lords. But to himself, as he strode out at weekends across the brooding hills of the Welsh borders, Tom Bingham was just a small, jobbing figure adding another grey stone or two to the ancient, intricate web of walls known as English common law.

　　他是公认的二战以来英国最伟大的法官：在当代只有他曾在短期内同时担任案卷主事官、首席大法官（英格兰和威尔士司法机构的首长）及上议院高级法官。但是对他来说，当他在周末跨越威尔士边界的忧郁的山林时，汤姆.宾翰只是一个微不足道的小人物，他整天忙碌于为一面古老而错综复杂的的墙上增添一两块石头，这面墙就是英国的普通法。

　　As a passionate⁴ historian, his subject at Balliol, he liked to put himself in a procession of judicial⁵ folk: 12th-century judges touring the shires to set up the royal writ⁶, 17th-century lawyers wrestling over the rights of king and Parliament. But the most interesting era of all, he thought, for a judge devoted⁷ to defending liberty, was the age he lived and worked in.

　　作为一个充满激情的历史学家，宾翰效力于巴尔·利奥尔国王。他喜欢效仿一系列关于法官的民间事迹：12世纪的法官遍访整个郡县来起草皇室文书，17世纪的律师与国王和议会夺权。但是他认为，对于一个想用一生来捍卫自由的法官来说，最适合的时代就是他们现在所生活和工作的时代。

　　His years at the apex⁸ of English justice involved coping with a government that tended, in the name of national security, to take the law into its own hands. But the rule of law was Tom Bingham's speciality. A centre for the study of it, named after him, opens next month. However loosely others defined it, for him its core was this: “that all persons and authorities within the state, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly made…and publicly administered in the courts.”

　　在他担任英国司法机构最高长官期间，他的职责包括防止政府以国家安全的名义让法律服从于政府。而依法行政正是他的专长。一个以他命名的研究中心将于下月成立，专门研究依法行政。无论别人对于依法行政的定义如何随意，他有自己的核心原则：本国的所有个人及机构，无论是公有还是私有，都应该受到法律的束缚，同时享有法律所赋予的权利。法律是公众制定的，也将公开地在法庭得到执行。

　　This meant not only that citizens should be spared the midnight knock on the door, the show trial and the gas chamber⁹, but also that the nine foreign men held at Belmarsh prison in London, kept there indefinitely by the Home Office on suspicion of terrorism and with no prospect¹⁰ of a trial, had been detained illegally. This ruling, in 2004, stunned¹¹ the government.

　　这不仅意味着法律应该保护公民不在半夜受到骚扰，避免公审及免于毒室的迫害，还意味着被关在伦敦贝尔马什监狱的九名外国人也应受到法律的保护。他们由于被怀疑参与恐怖主义行动而被英国内政部非法逮捕并无限期关押。2004年他的这一裁决让政府大为震惊。

　　In 2005 came another Bingham bombshell: evidence obtained by torture, no matter what the pretext¹², was unreliable, offensive and inadmissible in court. It was clear to him too that the invasion of Iraq, based on no hard evidence of Saddam's evil intent and unauthorised by the Security Council acting¹³ collectively, was a serious breach¹⁴ of international law; but his opinion was neither sought, nor volunteered, at the time.

　　2005年宾翰又一次让人大跌眼镜：他宣布凡是通过严刑逼供得到的证词，无论是什么内容，在法庭上都是不可靠的、无礼的、不可接受的。他也很清楚知道，英国进军伊拉克没有关于萨达姆的恶意的确凿证据，也没有得到要求统一行动的安理会的批准，明显违反了国际法。但是当时他的这一看法没有等到认可也没有公诸于世。

　　After the Belmarsh ruling, the Guardian¹⁵ cried that he was “a radical…leading a new English revolution”. Lord Bingham didn't dislike that; it raised one of his wry¹⁶ smiles; but nor did he think it “at all apt”. He was politically neutral, as judges had to be. He did not consider himself at odds¹⁷ with the Blair government; it had achieved one of the things he had fought hardest for, the incorporation¹⁸ into English law in the 1998 Human Rights Act of the European Convention on Human Rights. But his very passion for those rights brought him bounding to their defence at any sign of erosion: rumours¹⁹ of torture, arrests of hecklers, carelessness for habeas corpus. Vigilance was vital.

　　贝尔马什案以后，《卫报》高呼他为领导英国新一代革命的激进主义者。对此宾翰没有表示反感，他只是苦笑。但是他也不觉得那样说是完全合适的。在政治上他是中立的，因为法官不得不这样。他认为他和布莱尔政府不是对立的，因为布莱尔政府实现了他尽力争取的目标之一，即在1998年将欧洲大会人权法案中关于人权的规定吸纳入英国法律之中。但正是他对这些权利的热衷使他在防范任何法律漏洞的迹象时表现得很活跃。这些迹象包括关于酷刑的谣言，逮捕质问者，人身保护权的疏忽。而机警是至关重要的。

　　It was necessary, too, to keep judges independent. He mused²⁰ on how constrained²¹ they were: unable to initiate²² or annul²³ anything, and subject to the sovereignty of Parliament. But he did pretty well, considering. At the head of public inquiries²⁴, he delivered stinging verdicts against oil companies and compliant²⁵ civil servants for contravening²⁶ sanctions on Rhodesia, and against the “deficient” Bank of England for failing to foresee the collapse²⁷ of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Only once did he disappoint liberals, when in 2008 the law lords ruled that the Serious Fraud Office was right, in view of Saudi threats, to ditch its inquiry²⁸ into BAE Systems' arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

　　保持法官的独立性也是必要的，他寻思着法官到底受到了多大的束缚：无法建立或废除任何法令，服从于议会主权。但是对于他的条件来说，他已经做得很好了。当他领导公众问询处时，严厉制裁了违反有关津巴布韦法令的石油公司及附炎趋势的公务员，英格兰银行也因未能预见国际商业信贷银行的解体而受到法律制裁。他唯一一次让自由派失望的在2008年，当时上议院高级法官裁定，英国重大诈骗办公室由于沙特阿拉伯的威胁而终止调查英国航天公司向沙特阿拉伯出售武器这一事件是正确的。

　　At the Bar he was a fine judge, dexterous²⁹ in argument and scrupulously³⁰ fair in his rulings. He became a QC at 38, and was made Lord Chief Justice, exceptionally, when his background was in commercial rather than criminal law. All through his career he was curious about, and open to, other legal systems. He relished³¹ the internationalising of the law, hoped for an “enjoyable courtship” with European civil codes, and was pleased to work in an age when England was less and less a legal island.

　　在法庭上，他是一个好法官，能言善辩，裁决极其公正。他38岁时成为高级律师，并被破格提升为最高法院首席法官，当时他的专业背景是商业法而不是犯罪法。在他的职业生涯中，他对其他的法律体系很感兴趣，也坦诚地接受。他热衷于法律的国际化，希望和欧洲民法典缔结“美好姻缘”。他很乐意工作在一个英格兰的司法体系日益颓败的时代。

　　But he kept a judge's liking³² for precedent³³. The new way of appointing judges, through the Judicial Appointments Commission, raised for him the risk of political lines of questioning in the American style. (“They are not going to ask them if they are fond of cats”.) He thought the old system, whereby the Lord Chancellor³⁴ tapped you on the shoulder and invited you to apply, had worked pretty well.

　　但是他保持着一个法官惯有的喜好。他觉得通过法官任命委员会任命法官的新方式存在风险，即政客们会质疑这是在沿袭美国人的风格（即不管你喜不喜欢都强塞给你）。他认为以前的任命方式，即大法官拍拍你的肩膀邀请你申请法官这一职位，一直成效显著。

　　He also disliked fixed³⁵ sentences, insisting that judges should be able to exercise flexibility³⁶ and discretion—especially in murder cases, where he campaigned against the mandatory³⁷ life term. On the other hand, talking of American influences, England's new Supreme³⁸ Court delighted him, because it removed the law lords from the possible taint³⁹ of politics at Westminster. He should have led them into the new court in 2009, but had left just a little too soon for his cottage in Wales.

　　他也很反感墨守成规，他认为法官应该灵活而谨慎地断案，特别是谋杀案。他曾经为谋杀罪的强制性终身监禁判罚进行过抗争。在另一方面，当谈及美国法律体系对英国的影响时，英国新一代的最高法院让他很满意，因为它让法官们避免受到议会的政客们可能的影响。他本应该在2009年将这些美国的经验引进到新法庭的，但当时他急着回到他威尔士的雅舍，就早离开了那么一点点。

　　For all his high positions, his face was never familiar. He preferred to work behind the scenes. “Cornhill” referred to his Welsh hamlet, not the eminence⁴⁰ in the City of London. You would not have noticed him as he strolled round the literary festival at Hay-on-Wye every year, or even in the Strand⁴¹. But on the ancient field-walls, his stones remain.

　　他位高权重，所以人们对他都是只闻其声未见其人。而他也更喜欢低调地幕后工作。“康希尔”指的是他所处的一个威尔士的小村庄，不是伦敦的名流。在每年的海伊文学节期间，他在海伊闲逛都没人认出他，甚至在伦敦中心的滨海街也是这样。但是在那面古老的“外墙”上，他所放的“石头”将被铭记。

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