Buccaneers Canon

Keira "Swashbucking" Knightley

They may be scums, but rude to them the judiciary must not be.

Well, much ruder than rude, actually.

Something along the lines of saying: “was turned loose to burgle the stores of Canberra with false credit cards” and “turned loose with instructions to rape and pillage the stores of Canberra” when describing the offence committed by a fake credit card-bearing fraud.

Come on, now... this isn’t the swashbuckling era of buccaneers anymore, mind you..

Rape, plunder and pillage. Arr!!!

These days pirates and their buccaneering canons have been much diluted thanks to Hollywood (and mostly Disney) - that the above three words are hardly ever associated with the seafaring (ahem) “adventurers”.

(Gotta go re-read R.L. Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” to get some ideas of what it means to be pirates of old and rid this image of the toothy Captain Jack Sparrow as the definitive “Arr!!” rep.)

In allowing an appeal against a Magistrate’s sentencing, Supreme Court Justice Richard Refshauge said: “It’s important that a judicial officer, in sentencing, describes the offences and their criminality with fairness and measured accuracy”.

Hmm... Measured accuracy. Nice words.

Anyway, the above article is one of two reported court cases which are worthy reads, the other one being the “land taken away by crony in Zimbabwe” case.

You are bound to be taken on a (though admittedly brief) emotional rollercoaster ride reading this article.

There's bound to be disgust, anger, pity, shock, bewilderment and shame.

This is, after all, the same country whose leader wants to be the “Malaysia of Southern Africa”.

The case was newsworthy because of the Malaysian ownership equation, but then again, the country (Zimbabwe) did embark on a "confiscate from the White minorities to give to the Black poor" a not-too-distant memory ago.

If there’s ever a sticky issue in Zimbabwe, it’s their Land Reform movement bit.

Arr...

Sergio Aragones' Groo