Book description
Legal systems like to think of themselves as impartial and fair,
dispensing the objective morality of Justice. But, from time to time, a
court of law can be as political, prejudiced, and biased as any other
arm of the State. The classic instance is the story of the trials of
Alfred Dreyfus. In December 1894 a French military tribunal found Alfred
Dreyfus guilty of high treason. Dreyfus was a Jew; the War Office was
determined that at all costs the honour and good name of the Army must
be upheld; and both left and right in the French Parliament used the
convulsions of the case for what they believed to be their own
advantage. The original verdict affected the Army, the Church, the
Judiciary and the State over the following twelve years. Even now the
case provokes arguments of fierce intensity. Guy Chapman's classic
exposition of the long drawn-out trials has been out of print for many
years and this present thorough revision incorporates the findings of
recent scholarship; it is compellingly readable and unapproachably
authoritative. The questions still remain - how far were the Dreyfus
Trials the product of a conscious conspiracy, how far an unconscious
conspiracy of silence, and how far did 'justice' prevail? Legal
systems like to think of themselves as impartial and fair, dispensing
the objective morality of Justice. But, from time to time, a court of
law can be as political, prejudiced, and biased as any other arm of the
State. The classic instance is the story of the trials of Alfred
Dreyfus. In December 1894 a French military tribunal found Alfred
Dreyfus guilty of high treason. Dreyfus was a Jew; the War Office was
determined that at all costs the honour and good name of the Army must
be upheld; and both left and right in the French Parliament used the
convulsions of the case for what they believed to be their own
advantage. The original verdict affected the Army, the Church, the
Judiciary and the State over the following twelve years. Even now the
case provokes arguments of fierce intensity. Guy Chapman's classic
exposition of the long drawn-out trials has been out of print for many
years and this present thorough revision incorporates the findings of
recent scholarship; it is compellingly readable and unapproachably
authoritative. The questions still remain - how far were the Dreyfus
Trials the product of a conscious conspiracy, how far an unconscious
conspiracy of silence, and how far did 'justice' prevail?
