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Professor Simon Lee's inaugural lecture on 'Open and Shut Cases', which comes at a time when many can be seen as having closed minds in the Brexit era and following the election of President Trump.... Simon is Professor of Law at The Open University. His interest in human rights and contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland provides material for his inaugural lecture. He will begin by tracing diverse sagas where much of the media and the public mistakenly assume that a case is open and shut, looking back at his own immediate comments on the conviction of Winston Silcott in 1987 for the murder, while on bail for another murder charge, of PC Keith Blakelock, and applying some wise words of Sir Robert Megarry in a different matter: "As everybody who has anything to do with the law well knows, the path of the law is strewn with examples of open and shut cases which, somehow, were not; of unanswerable charges which, in the event, were completely answered; of inexplicable conduct which was fully explained; of fixed and unalterable determinations that, by discussion, suffered a change." Megarry J, John v Rees [1970] Ch 345, 402. Simon will broaden out the discussion to address more recent examples from law, sport, literature and university life, from accusations of plagiarism and cheating to political U-turns, right up to the recent attack on Westminster, asking what possessed Channel 4 News, perceived to be an archetypal proponent of political correctness and opponent of ‘fake news', to name the wrong person as the attacker. Simon will then look at the latest research from the USA on whether judges, lawyers, law students and the general public think differently and he will question how we can encourage students and the wider public to be open-minded. Finally, he will reflect on Allan Bloom's challenging book, The Closing of the American Mind from 1987 and the battle-cries of ‘post-truth' and ‘fake news' in 2017. He will conclude by encouraging open-mindedness in the decades to come.
Professor Simon Lee's inaugural lecture on 'Open and Shut Cases', which comes at a time when many can be seen as having closed minds in the Brexit era and following the election of President Trump.... Simon is Professor of Law at The Open University. His interest in human rights and contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland provides material for his inaugural lecture. He will begin by tracing diverse sagas where much of the media and the public mistakenly assume that a case is open and shut, looking back at his own immediate comments on the conviction of Winston Silcott in 1987 for the murder, while on bail for another murder charge, of PC Keith Blakelock, and applying some wise words of Sir Robert Megarry in a different matter: "As everybody who has anything to do with the law well knows, the path of the law is strewn with examples of open and shut cases which, somehow, were not; of unanswerable charges which, in the event, were completely answered; of inexplicable conduct which was fully explained; of fixed and unalterable determinations that, by discussion, suffered a change." Megarry J, John v Rees [1970] Ch 345, 402. Simon will broaden out the discussion to address more recent examples from law, sport, literature and university life, from accusations of plagiarism and cheating to political U-turns, right up to the recent attack on Westminster, asking what possessed Channel 4 News, perceived to be an archetypal proponent of political correctness and opponent of ‘fake news', to name the wrong person as the attacker. Simon will then look at the latest research from the USA on whether judges, lawyers, law students and the general public think differently and he will question how we can encourage students and the wider public to be open-minded. Finally, he will reflect on Allan Bloom's challenging book, The Closing of the American Mind from 1987 and the battle-cries of ‘post-truth' and ‘fake news' in 2017. He will conclude by encouraging open-mindedness in the decades to come.
| First transmission date: | 22-05-2017 |
|---|---|
| Published: | 2017 |
| Rights Statement: | Rights owned or controlled by The Open University |
| Restrictions on use: | Contact the OU Archive prior to any re-use. Contact university-archive@open.ac.uk. |
| Duration: | 00:51:50 |
| + Show more... | |
| Contributor: | Simon Lee |
| Publisher: | The Open University |
| Link to related site: | External url: https://youtu.be/hhaoYjiMBfE |
| Production number: | OUR00160 |
| Available to public: | no |
