By Leslie Robins
Once upon a time there lived a lawyer called Jasper whose practice at the Bar had drifted into the doldrums. It was ages since he’d had a decent brief and he sat brooding in his chambers wondering how he could possibly sustain his expensive life-style. His son Tristram had just passed his driving test and naturally wanted a BMW sports car. The fees at his daughter Alicia’s riding school had recently doubled; and his wife Natasha was threatening to leave him if he sold their second home in Tuscany.
What was he to do? Take a crash course in Managementspeak and learn to manage something? That was where the money seemed to be nowadays. But no, he was a lawyer to his fingertips and a flash of inspiration suddenly dawned upon him – invent a new branch of the law and corner the market in it.
Easier said than done, though. Contract, tort, libel, divorce, tax avoidance – they’d all been milked dry. But wait a moment – he’d got it: Human Rights!
It didn’t seem too promising at first. What exactly were these rights that we acquired at birth, just by being human? Nobody could guarantee us a long healthy and prosperous life, surely? But Jasper stuck at it and worked out the general principle, which is that we are all entitled to a life free of disappointment, failure, misadventure, deprivation or inconvenience of any kind. If any one of these things happens to you it means that your Human Rights have been infringed and someone must pay for it.
It’s a completely barmy idea, of course, but such is the perversity of human nature that it caught on at once and soon spread like wildfire. Jasper, as a leading practitioner, found himself in constant demand. Every cracked paving stone, every cancelled NHS appointment, every failed driving test, became for him a potential money-spinner.
The Human Rights of a cricketer at Forty Green took a hard knock when he fumbled a catch and bruised his left thumb. The manufacturer of the ball, who lived in Halifax, was quite unaware that the match was taking place, but that didn’t stop him from having to pay through the nose for the suffering he had undoubtedly caused. A school-teacher in Chesham wantonly damaged the Human Rights of an unruly pupil by turning him off the school bus. Unable to pay the compensation awarded against her she is now bankrupt and living in a Salvation Army hostel. And when Jasper sued a well-known publisher for failing to publish a novel by his friend Neville and it turned out that Neville had abandoned it after three chapters, Jasper successfully argued that his Human Rights had been violated all the same by the disappointment of his literary expectations. Moreover this was undoubtedly what had triggered his Acute Personality Disorder. Exemplary damages were awarded.
All this has, as you may imagine, done wonders for Jasper’s bank balance. Tristram now has an Aston Martin and a Porsche, Alicia is running her own riding stables and Natasha spends half her time in the family Chateau in Provence.
Whether it has also led to an increase in the sum total of human happiness is, however, another question altogether. Personally, I don’t think it has.
But for Heaven’s sake don’t tell Jasper I said so.