Law

Law

WHO KILLED SIR THOMAS DRAVISTON?
Lord Mulberry stared gloomily at the papers that his personal secretary had set out so neatly on his desk. For reason of a strong sense of public duty and a not inconsiderable fee he had agreed to head up the inquiry into the death of Sir Thomas Draviston. He had met Draviston only twice and only once been invited to dinner, but he had known of the judge’s international reputation, his work for the UN Human Rights Commission, his brief period with the European Commission, his membership of the European Court of Human Rights and of course his consultancies with the International Criminal Court. There should be a ban on public men having private life. It would be cheaper that way.
Unfortunately the circumstances of Draviston’s death were such that press attention could not be avoided and the open verdict of the inquest had hardly dampened speculation. In this context the ‘public’, more specifically of course the press apparently had a right to know to search with forensic detail into the family life of one of the most remarkable legal minds in England. Mulberry’s task would be to make sure that the terms of that inquiry were strictly confined within a ‘need to know’ frame of reference. It was therefore essential to know what might have happened in order to decide what, if anything, the public needed to know. This included for example verifying if possible his alleged death-bed acceptance of a rather unlikely proposal of matrimony made to him by his Estonian/Russian ‘pupil’, a mere sixty years his junior.
On Lord Mulberry’s desk were eleven folders each folder enclosing a short statement. These were headed as follows;
1. THE OBITUARY OF SIR THOMAS DRAVISTON – WRITTEN BY HIS FRIEND JOHN SMITH
2. STATEMENT OF MARGARET DUBOIS
3. STATEMENT OF KATRINA DE WITTE
4. STATEMENT OF PAUL DRAVISTON
5. STATEMENT OF JOSEPH EMBULI
6. STATEMENT OF MARIA DRAVISTON
7. STATEMENT OF DOCTOR BLACK
8. STATEMENT OF MARCUS BECK ANGLICAN PRIEST ATTACHED TO THE CHURCH OF BLESSED SAINTS HIGHGATE
9. STATEMENT OF JEROME WHITE
10. FINAL WILL AND TESTAMENT OF SIR THOMAS DRAVISTON (SUMMARY)
11. STATEMENT OF INSPECTOR GOLLUM FORMERLY OF LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE (PARTS 1 & 2)
With some foreboding Mulberry turned to the obituary.

1. THE OBITUARY OF SIR THOMAS DRAVISTON (1932-2012) THE TIMES MARCH 4 2012
‘Sir Thomas was born in impoverished circumstances in Middlesbrough. His father was an out of work shipbuilder, one of the many victims of the depression. His mother a trained primary school teacher, a victim of love and downward mobility, was under the terms of pre-war teacher’s contracts obliged to give up her career following her marriage. For the Dravistons the war brought brief new opportunity and ultimate tragedy. His father became a tank driver for the Royal Engineers until fatally wounded in the final advance into Germany. His mother was a member of the Women’s Royal Army Corps working as a driver for what remained of the civilian police force. She died in 1948 victim of an undiscovered bomb. Almost certainly the young death of his parents sharpened Sir Thomas’ loathing for conflict. The war left him nothing but his intelligence.
By 1949 his early educational promise led to a scholarship to New College Oxford where he obtained a first in law. This was quickly followed by success at the Bar, appointment within the highly rated Macmillan chambers (specialists in Human Rights), appointment as QC, appointment as a High Court judge and then transfer to a series of international legal posts. Amongst the many highlights of his career was his early work with the European Commission in 1986 on the Single European Act. Despite his social-democratic tendencies he had been influential in persuading Margaret Thatcher to sign up to the SEA therefore paving the way for the European Union Treaty of Maastricht. He was less successful in convincing her or the other leaders of ‘New Europe’ that the new EU needed an explicit human rights legal competence. In the 1990s his interest shifted to Strasburg. In that role as member of the ECHR he guided the new Labour administration of Tony Blair towards introduction of the Human Rights Act in 1998.
What arguably was his most controversial work was still to come. His publication, ‘Rwanda, the International Community’s Disgrace’ (1996) and his later sadly now incomplete trilogy, ‘The Death of Human Rights’ (2000), ‘The Death of International Law’ (2007) and ‘The Death of Law’ (2012 forthcoming) have generated considerable professional and academic debate. His consistent theme was that ‘humanitarian intervention’ was an ethically reasonable response by the international community to the problem of institutional evil and state-based terrorism, but that it was also legally impossible to justify. This effectively meant that ‘international law’ was dead.
In 1998 he was the UK government adviser on the setting up of the International Criminal Court and was also the special adviser for Tony Blair on the subject of European security policy. His theories on ‘just war’ were rumoured to be highly influential upon the Labour leadership consistent with the Blair brand of religion. His peerage was his reward. He fell out with Tony Blair following 9/11 but he was one of the few ‘special advisers’ to retain respect. Almost certainly he would have been consulted by the present Attorney General on Libya and but for his illness probably on Syria and Iran. Most recently he was understood to have acted as an adviser on the internet film ‘Kony’ (2012) concerning the activities of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
I was fortunate to visit Sir Thomas in his the last weeks of his life. I met with Margaret Dubois, Katrina de Witte and Joseph Draviston. His life was made more beautiful by the love of Margaret, Katrina and Joseph. They made his final private year fun and romantic, an Indian summer to end a golden life of public service. As some of his very few long standing close friends knew Sir Thomas’ defence of human rights was practical as well as professional. He pushed for ICC arrest warrants to be issued against the LRA leaders. Joseph who lived with him at the end was a child soldier adopted by Sir Thomas following a fact finding visit to Uganda ten years ago.
Sir Thomas died peacefully in his beloved Hampstead home. He is succeeded by his sons Paul Draviston and Joseph Draviston. He will be mourned and missed by many.’

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