Template:Did you know nominations/Heber Hart

Heber Hart

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• ... that in 1941 the judge Heber Hart thought that the British justice system "may be the worst in western Europe"?

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/2014–15 RFU Championship

Created by SchroCat (talk). Self nominated at 18:46, 5 June 2014 (UTC).

Non-issue closed: QPQ reviewed article promoted by non-involved DYK administrator

:* Note: QPQ review is incomplete. Yoninah (talk) 22:28, 5 June 2014 (UTC) Not really: I've asked for two sources to be added, but that is all. - SchroCat (talk) 07:47, 6 June 2014 (UTC) The DYK administrators ask that you specify which criteria you check in a review, not just give a blanket approval like "within policy". Checks include: New enough, long enough, well referenced, no close paraphrasing seen, hook ref verified (or AGF), hook ref cited inline, image is public domain, and QPQ done. There are other technical checks, such as at least one inline citation per paragraph, which can be found in Supplementary guidelines. Yoninah (talk) 23:15, 8 June 2014 (UTC) @Yoninah:, I have already informed you that I have reviewed this article against the criteria. I have indicated this appropriately in the review text I left. As per the DYK review instructions, a suggested format for the text is "Article length and age are fine, no copyvio or plagiarism concerns, reliable sources are used. But the hook needs to be shortened." I will repeat my review text: "Article is new enough, long enough and within policy. Hook is fine." There is little enough difference between those texts; if you don't like that suggested text, change it, but don't be overly critical when reviewers follow something similar. - SchroCat (talk) 05:06, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

• New enough. Long enough. None of the sources are available online, but with my Wellcome Library and UK public library memberships, I was able to check them all, and found no copyvios or close paraphrasing. NPOV. QPQ done. Hook has an inline citation, as does each para. As for the hook, I've trimmed the first "British" as it is not necessary and adds little to the impact. Good to go. Edwardx (talk) 09:43, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• Many thanks: I've just made one slight alteration, which is removing the post-date comma. Although this is fine in AmEng, it isn't in BrEng. Thanks again and cheers - SchroCat (talk) 10:04, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• The article gives a date of 1941 for the book in which Hart made the quoted statement. The hook gives a date of 1948. Please check the date, and make whichever correction is necessary. --Orlady (talk) 18:41, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• Many thanks @Orlady: all now tweaked and sorted. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 18:51, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• I've pulled this from prep because it seems (seems) clear from the sources that subject was speaking of the English legal system, not British. This is the kind of "fix" I don't feel comfortable making just minutes before the set will likely go in Q then to MP. This needs to be checked carefully in all sources related to this point and then the hook modified if necessary. EEng (talk) 20:32, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Not according to the sources, which refer to "British". To force this to English moves us too far into OR to be acceptable. - SchroCat (talk) 20:44, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I point out I didn't suggest "forcing this to English". I said the question should be carefully checked before this goes on MP. EEng (talk) 21:29, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• I'm going to repromote this. The personal views of one contributor don't trump sources. Anyway, British law is fundamentally the law of England. --Orlady (talk) 20:48, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

And I'm re-unpromoting again. At best there's a conflict of secondary sources e.g, [1]. The English-British question needs to be resolved before this can appear on MP. And, bluntly, if you think you can get away with blithe nonsense like "British law is fundamentally the law of England" then you really, really should not be entrusted with final assembly of hook sets -- you don't know enough to know what you don't know. I quote from Law_of_the_United_Kingdom:

The United Kingdom has three legal systems.[1] English law, which applies in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland law, which applies in Northern Ireland, are based on common-law principles. Scots law, which applies in Scotland, is a pluralistic system based on civil-law principles, with common law elements dating back to the High Middle Ages. While England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland diverge in the more detailed rules of common law and equity, and while there are certain fields of legislative competence devolved in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and London, there are substantive fields of law which apply across the United Kingdom.

EEng (talk) 21:26, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• Since EEng wants to speak bluntly, I will bluntly state that EEng's recent actions (of which this is just one) indicate a campaign of harassment against DYK -- possibly aimed at killing DYK by driving away self-respecting competent DYK volunteers.

This nom uses sources that are not universally available, but it was reviewed and approved by an experienced contributor who used his library access to check the sources and verify the hook. That's a very solid review, IMO. After the hook was approved, it sat on the noms page for 11 days (ample time for someone with a concern to comment) without anyone (other than me) raising a concern. It took only about an hour for EEng to move it back here after it was moved to the prep area, based initially on his personal opinion that the author might have been talking about the English judicial system rather than the British judicial system. His later claim that there is a conflict of sources is weak; the source he cites (an unsigned review of The Way to Justice: A Primer of Legal Reform in The University of Toronto Law Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1942), pp. 460-469; stable URL [2] ) does refer to "England", but it does not contain the quotation cited in the article, nor does it explicitly indicate whether the scope of Hart's critique was of the English legal system or the British legal system. That does not actually contradict the source cited in the article. I can't help but think that EEng will not be satisfied unless we disinter Heber Hart and interview him about his book.

Note: The hook that I added to the prep area (twice now) was slightly revised to read ... that in 1941 the judge Heber Hart wrote that the British justice system "may be the worst in western Europe"? --Orlady (talk) 23:57, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh for pity's sake. Here's the article's current text [3]:

In 1939, Hart published his memoirs, Reminiscences and Reflections; he also wrote a critique of the British judicial system, The Way to Justice: a Primer of Legal Reform, which was published in 1941. In the latter book, he wrote that "our legal system is grievously at fault", and that it "may be the worst in western Europe".

is Hart's article in DNB [4]. And here's what it says about this book, including the very quotation you were looking for i.e. the one used in the hook:

The ‘experiment’ of the tribunals stimulated Hart's appetite for law reform generally. Holding that ‘our legal system is grievously at fault’ and ‘may be the worst in western Europe’ (Hart, Way to Justice, 8, 26), he aired his views in a hard-hitting little book, The Way to Justice: a Primer of Legal Reform (1941), published when he was over seventy-five. In the spirit of Bentham, whom he quotes at length, he attacked the English legal system root and branch. He held that a bench of three judges should be the norm in every court of first instance, arguing for the abolition, both in civil and criminal cases, of trial by jury, or what he called ‘a fortuitous assemblage of twelve people unacquainted with law or legal procedure, and not improbably including one or more persons of indifferent character or intelligence or unjudicial mind’ (ibid., 55). He deplored the two-tier appellate system from Court of Appeal to House of Lords as a lottery—arbitrary, unfair, and prohibitively costly for the loser—calling for a single supreme court of appeal. He questioned the principle of the presumption of innocence and the rule against self-incrimination, arguing that both were outweighed by the need to protect the community from crime. He urged the abolition of most rules of evidence. Above all he condemned the very basis of the English legal system, reliance on precedent, and called for the law to be codified in order to ‘obviate the enormous waste of time, labour and money now involved in the search for relevant authorities, and their examination, citation and discussion’ (ibid., 35), after which ‘every volume of law reports … might then be burnt’ (Hart, Reminiscences, 357).

For your convenience I've added emphasis to each instance of the word English (of which there are two), as well as to each instance of the word British (of which there are, um, zero).

So to recap, the article's own cited source says "English", contradicting the article's text. So I was wrong. There's no conflict of sources. Both the book review Orlady dismisses, and the article's own source -- DNB -- agree on "English".

EEng (talk) 00:39, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

• Tweaked, against my better judgement. @Orlady:, please re-promote. @EEng: next time, tweak, rather than go through the three-act drama that is only ever going to piss people off. - SchroCat (talk) 05:43, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

First of all, don't change the original hook in place, as you did [5], because by doing so you make nonsense of the discussion so far. You seem to be proposing:

• ALT1 ... that in 1941 the judge Heber Hart thought that the English justice system "may be the worst in western Europe"?

And why is this against your better judgment? While we're at it let me suggest a tweak of my own:

• ALT2 ... that in 1941 retired judge Heber Hart wrote that the English justice system "may be the worst in western Europe"?

Why would you write "the judge", and that he "thought" this in 1941? No doubt he thought it for some time. He wrote it in 1941. EEng (talk) 05:55, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with thought. "No doubt he thought it for some time" goes into speculation and OR. @Orlady:, please go with the line I last suggested. Thanks very much. - SchroCat (talk) 06:36, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

You're right that there's nothing wrong with thought, and we could certainly use some of it in this discussion e.g. the difference between England and Britain, recognition of which you tell us is against your better judgment. Suffice it at this point to say that Orlady shouldn't be closing a nom on which she did the review. Someone new will sort out which hooks do or don't make sense. EEng (talk) 06:45, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

For the record, User:EEng, I did not do the review of this nomination. It was reviewed by Edwardx 11 days before I looked at it. I was scanning "approved" hooks on the noms page looking for hooks that were ready to be moved to prep and that would provide appropriate topical balance in the current prep areas. (Review of the noms page is something that you could do if you are interested in improving DYK.) I saw the date discrepancy (which was likely a typo) and asked for clarification. That action did not require a third party to look over my shoulder to make sure that "8" was changed to "1" correctly. --Orlady (talk) 17:29, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

You're right. My mistake, sorry. Nonetheless I think at this point it would be best if someone else closes this. EEng (talk) 17:49, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Trust me, I'm not going to touch this again. I repeat my observation that you appear to be engaged in a campaign to shut down DYK by causing all self-respecting volunteers to decide they have better things to do with their time than tangling with you. Then you will declare DYK dead because there are no competent volunteers administering it. --Orlady (talk) 18:33, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Such an overly bureaucratic approach isn't helpful. I'm happy for Orlady to close with my last suggested, and correct, hook. Your foray into incivility is an unwelcome development in this thread. Don't let it develop any further please. - SchroCat (talk) 12:59, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

It's not bureaucracy. Rather, neither of you seems to understand that details like Britain versus England matter, so it's better if someone else make that decision. Harts ideas were expressed in a printed work, so "wrote" is appropriate. To say what someone "thought" is appropriate for, say, an intimate writing such as a diary entry, or for belief clearly sustained over time, such as "Aristotle thought suchandsuch", but not here. To turn something Hart wrote into what he "thought" is the very speculation you complain about, and it's even worse to say he "thought" it in 1941.

As I write (yes, "write") the above you've quibbled [6] in an edit summary that you want to use thought instead of wrote because

no, it's stricken for a reason: do you have any sources that say when Heber wrote the book?

Now you are truly making yourself ridiculous. It's conventional to place a person's "writing" in time according to when the published work appears, even though obviously he or she wrote it earlier than that; for example, we might say, "Pundit P wrote in the May 1 issue of Newspaper N that the Prime Minister 'has lost all credibility'". Similarly we say Hart "wrote" about the English legal system in 1941, not that he "thought" it then. This is the conventional way these things are expressed. If you want we could say, "H said the English legal system was blah blah in a book published in 1941", but that's just a longwinded way of saying the same thing. EEng (talk) 13:54, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Nope. I am not "being ridiculous". 1. Stop banging in about the British v English: it was tweaked hours ago and is something to stop blething on about. 2. You don't know when he wrote the book. Could have been 1939, 40, 41... Etc. do you have any idea when it was written? No you don't, so don't falsify what the situation is. We know he thought it in 1941, because the book would have been withdrawn (or re-drafted) if he thought otherwise. I'm sad to see you didn't take heed of the request to avoid further incivility, and have added further fuel to the fire. Again, please desist. If you can't write something without going down that route, best to avoid writing anything at all. - SchroCat (talk) 14:18, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Again, "Person P wrote 'I think suchandsuch' in 1941" is conventional shorthand for "Person P's opinion 'I think suchandsuch' was published in 1941". It has nothing to do with when he, personally, put pen to paper. I won't be responding further to your posts, since they don't address this simple point made several times now. But feel free to have the last word until someone new shows up to help sort this out.

And stop striking out ALT2. Striking out is used where it's clear everyone agrees that a particular hook is no longer a viable candidate. That's not the case here. EEng (talk) 14:37, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks heaven for small mercies. If you are happy for misleading shorthand, so edit: I am not. @Orlady:, please now feel free to promote - and please ignore the grossly misleading Alt2 that is just wrong, wrong, bloody wrong. Thanks - SchroCat (talk) 14:44, 23 June 2014 (UTC)