You're entitled to your impressions. Just as you are entitled to inject your definitions into my words and then argue that they are wrong.

I don't think I've much to add to this othe than to say that you couldn't pay me enough to be Breivik's lawyer.

Is that because you'd have to deal with him personally, or because your job would be to defend him? I imagine the role of a criminal defence lawyer could often involve trying to defend people they can't stand, and whose actions are horrible. Someone has to do it though.

Both. On a personal level I find his political views abhorrent, and on a higher level I couldn't defend someone with those views. I know what a defence lawyer is expected to do but Breivik is completely undefendable to me.

The lawyers are defending the process of law, whatever he's done he has to be processed correctly. I suspect that Norwegian prisons are actually relatively plush compared to most and he's expecting to put his feet up and spend the next however long spouting crap and writing important letters etc. and having eager journos fighting over the rights to his exclusive ramblings. Here's an idea - prisoner exchange with North Korea? They can have him and Norway can cough up the 50 Euros needed to keep him for the next 100 years.

What gives you the idea Norwegian prisons are soft?

Where did you get that the lawyers are defending the process of law from? His lawyers only job is to get him off the hook by whatever method, nothing more adventurous than that.
It's a judge's job to defend and define law.

Surely the point is whether or not they are effective.

If I remember correctly, Scandinavian justice as a whole is 'softer' than what most of our electorate screams for – yet they have a far lower rate of recidivism. One wonders why.

A defence lawyer's job is not at all to "get the client off the hook". For one thing, the vast majority of defendants plead guilty. It is simply to advance the case for the defence within the law and within the rules, to the best of his/her ability.

Many lawyers defend clients they personally despise, but do so rightly as part of the wider picture to defend the process or rule of law. Since if a defendant can't get a lawyer, then what sort of a system of justice would that be?

In the UK, we have the "cab rank rule". It requires barristers to take a case "regardless of the nature of the case, or the conduct, opinions, beliefs of the prospective client or if the client is being financially supported in order to guarantee that lay clients will always be able to find an advocate willing to represent them, so maintaining access to justice".

The whole point of this is to defend the process of law.


I am no expert on Norwegian law, but don't see that the judge would have to "defend" the law in any way. Surely the judge's role in relation to the law is simply to decide (in case of doubt) what the law is, decide on the facts (to the extent they are disputed), and how the law applies to the facts of a given case?

We saw Mr Breiviks compassionate side during evidence giving today.
Apparently he consciously attempted not to sacrifice anyone he judged to be under 16 years of age.

I wonder if he took time out to ask them for some ID before he carried on blasting?