Weird Cases: the bottom of the matter
From Times Online
April 3, 2009
Gary Slapper
business.timesonline.co.uk
Faced with a tough legal challenge, a law academic should be able to strip away anything superficial and quickly get to the bottom of the matter.
Megumi Ogawa, a lecturer in law, did that unconventionally when representing herself in an Australian trial recently. Unimpressed by the prosecution’s case against her, she lowered her trousers and bared her buttocks at the judge.
For presenting her rebuttal in that way, she was given a predictably poor mark and jailed for four months for contempt by the Brisbane District Court.
Ogawa, who had lectured in law at the Southern Cross University in Lismore, New South Wales, was on trial for two counts of using a carriage service (the telephone system or internet) to harass and to threaten to kill two court officials. During a long conflict with the court system she had sent 83 emails and made 176 calls to court staff.
During the preliminary proceedings, Ogawa sacked a series of lawyers before deciding to represent herself. Then, during the trial, she was forcibly removed from the court several times for sustained high-pitched screaming, making statements calculated to bring the justice system into disrepute and violent wrestling with security officers.
Her law lectures must have been lively events.
Ogawa was convicted of the harassment and death threat charges and sentenced to six months in jail in addition to the four months for contempt. She had to be held down in the dock by three security officers when being told by the judge of her sentence.
Using a bottom as a gesture of contempt has historically been treated with varying degrees of severity.
In 1615, a Plymouth magistrate expressed his opinion about the mayor by posturing his bottom “in an inhuman and uncivil manner” at the dignitary and saying to him “come and kiss”. But a court decided that was not enough to warrant the magistrates removal from office.
The award for most impassive unclothed contempt goes jointly to Mssrs Gohoho and Gough. After being ordered to pay £50 into court as a security payment in 1964 for a forthcoming action, Mr Moses Gohoho manifested his despair in the High Court in London by removing his trousers and underpants and lying on the court bench in front of the judges.
In 2005, in Scotland, Stephen Gough was arrested and prosecuted for a breach of the peace for walking naked on the outskirts of Edinburgh. He later attended court to face the charge but walked into the court naked. When he was found to be in contempt for being undressed in court he appealed; and his lawyer argued that appearing naked in a law court was a “fundamental human right”. The Court of Appeal disagreed and ruled that presenting your genitals to a judge in a law court was a fundamental human wrong.
Professor Gary Slapper is Director of the Centre for Law at The Open University
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