Sometimes it is important to identify nonsense plainly, so here goes: The idea that Simon Harris can, should, or need be expected to do anything at all about the plight of Enoch Burke is a fantasy and a fabrication of the highest order.
Ireland is a democratic country in the western tradition. One of the cornerstones of western democracy is something called the separation of powers – that is to say that the judiciary and the justice system operate largely independently of the legislature and the politicians. It is not hard to understand why this is necessary, and why that system exists.
Let us imagine, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Harris had the power to do what Enoch Burke’s family apparently demand that he does, and release Mr. Burke from prison, where he is in custody for refusing to accept the orders of the court. Presumably, and logically, this power would therefore also extend to other prisoners, meaning that Mr. Harris would have the power to release any person incarcerated by the state, if sufficient political pressure was placed upon him.
On Tuesday of this week, that is what the Burke family did: In their customary manner, which some people appear to find entertaining but which the preponderance of the population likely finds utterly boorish, they surrounded the Taoiseach and shouted at him demanding that he answer questions about Mr. Burke and intercede for his release.
Whatever else one might say about the Burke family, we can be reasonably confident that episodes like this constitute the limits of their lobbying and behaviour: A bit of shouting; a bit of accidental jostling; claims that they themselves were actually assaulted by the Taoiseach’s henchmen – all in the service of publicity and victimhood and endless, endless grievance. Mr. Harris will probably live and survive the experience just fine. He won’t be the last to experience it, and he’s certainly not the first.
However, had Mr. Harris the power to actually intervene and release Mr. Burke, do we think that perhaps some of the state’s most violent and dangerous criminals would do their lobbying of politicians on the streets? Further, do we think politicians with the power to over-rule judges would use that power in the national interest? What court rulings would remain binding, in that situation? Would the Government still be expected to obey court orders, or could it simply grant itself the same clemency and freedom from any obligation to obey that people would apparently like it to grant to Mr. Burke?
You’re a funny kind of person, if you at once believe – as many of Mr. Burke’s supporters appear to – that the present Government is disgraceful and in some way crooked, but also that it should be granted the power to over-rule Judges wily-nily.
But of course, in truth, that’s not what Mr. Burke’s supporters believe: They genuinely believe that this should be a one-off event – that there should very literally be one law for Enoch Burke and another law entirely for everyone else. And in the apparent views of many of them I’ve encountered, if you do not go along with this complete and utter nonsense, you might be in some way an establishment stooge.
Of course, none of these blatant contradictions matter, because unfortunately for many people this business with Enoch Burke is a black and white matter: They agree with him on transgenderism (as, for the record, does this writer) therefore in their view he is being unjustly persecuted, and something must be done. The problem is that one can be right about transgenderism, as Mr. Burke largely is, and also act entirely illegally, as Mr. Burke has by refusing to obey the orders of a court.
In the service of Mr. Burke’s cause, far too many of his supporters would throw the rule of law in the bin entirely. On the one hand, they insist that court orders should not apply to him and that he should be free to disobey them without the logical consequence of his incarceration – on the other hand they would throw a fit if Mr. Burke’s former employer decided to disobey a court order that would reinstate him with compensation. On the one hand, they cheer the Burke family’s constant disruption of public events and their noisy protests; on the other hand they expect Judges in courts to simply tolerate that disruption rather than removing the disruptors from the courtroom.
Amidst all of this, the facts of Mr. Burke’s case remain constant: He is as free to walk out of Mountjoy tomorrow as any person reading this is free to write a comment underneath the article: It is entirely his choice – either he obeys the court and leaves the prison, or he continues to express contempt for the court and remains there.
Simon Harris has no power under law – thank God – to intervene in the courts in relation to this case. He has no power to retroactively legalise Mr. Burke’s contempt; He has no power to pardon Mr. Burke; He has no power to change the laws as they relate to transgenderism in schools in a way that would impact Mr. Burke’s case, because laws cannot be applied retrospectively.
Nor has the Judge any power, in reality, to release Mr. Burke absent Mr. Burke agreeing to purge his contempt and respect the courts: To do so would be to break the power of the judiciary forever, and establish that its rulings can simply be ignored. The entire system of justice in this country only works – and can only work – if the courts have the power to make decisions that are binding on individuals and institutions. If obeying the courts becomes optional, what exactly is there to stop somebody from moving into your spare room and simply declaring that they live in your house now?
There is, I’m aware, a section of society and a section of my own readers who care about precisely none of this and will continue to insist that Mr. Burke is in prison because of his views on transgenderism – which poses a very basic question: If that is the reason why he is in prison, why are you not in the cell beside him? Why am I not? Why is it that he is being persecuted, with imprisonment, according to this view of the world, but nobody else in the country who shares his views on pronouns and gender-swapping has met the same fate?
The conduct of the Burke family as a collective – disrupting events, shouting over people making opposing arguments, hassling politicians on the street, insisting that the laws should protect them but not apply to them – is a far better explanation of why Mr. Burke is in prison than the alternative explanation. Mr. Harris cannot free Enoch Burke, but Enoch Burke can, and is choosing not to.
For the rest of us, and indeed for people genuinely sympathetic to Mr. Burke, the very worst thing we can or should do is indulge this self-destructive behaviour.
It’s one (very sad) thing if Mr. Burke and his family are content to see Mr. Burke spend the rest of his life in prison rather than agree to live by the rule of law. It’s quite another for the rest of us to encourage it. It is beyond time that the endless nonsense of the Burke family stopped being indulged.