In Britain, as a rule, judges and lawyers don't become celebrities. There have been notable exceptions - Lords Scarman and Denning, James Pickles, Michael Mansfield, John Mortimer - but for the most part the legal world keeps its head down and out of the limelight.
It's not quite the same in other countries. Spain, for example. This is due in no small part to a different legal system of prosecuting judges. These judges, such as Baltasar Garzón, the subject now of a documentary film, as well as prosecutors, are firmly in the public eye. When the corruption scandals erupt in Mallorca, as they do on an almost daily basis, the media is full of photos of prosecutors entering or exiting whichever premises are being raided and searched or entering or exiting court buildings. Because also of a Spanish system whereby prosecutions can be sought outside Spanish territory - Garzón it was who issued the warrant for Chile's former dictator General Pinochet and who has also looked at prosecuting US officials for alleged torture - judges and prosecutors become their own news stories.
And because also of international courts, a breed of lawyer has flourished, one that takes up cases on behalf of all manner of strange people and one that also seeks warrants for other strange people.
Giovanni di Stefano is one of the best-known of these international lawyers. Italian, but brought up in England, he has been in the news since his arrest in Palma following the issuing of a warrant by City of London Police. So much has he been in the news that his photo - usually the same one of him in a Palma hospital where he was being treated for cancer - has appeared regularly in the press over the past week or so. He has featured heavily in "The Bulletin". Yesterday, the paper ran an interview - of sorts - with Di Stefano.
It was interesting in that it highlighted some of the people with whom Di Stefano has fraternised (albeit the information is available elsewhere, such as on Wikipedia). It was also interesting in what it didn't say or ask and why; it was, for example, more or less silent as to his own background, one that includes charges of fraud.
The main publicity surrounding Di Stefano at present, other than his anticipated extradition to England, is that he has said that he intends to have a warrant issued for the arrest of Tony Blair. It is this, one imagines, that makes him of particular interest to an English-speaking paper in Mallorca.
In the so-called interview, which might have been better described as a soliloquy, other than references to Blair and his alleged war crimes, he slags off Britain (fair enough, anyone's well entitled to do this) and mentions not just the fact that he believes Charles Manson was not a killer but also his friendships with Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian warlord Arkan. Everyone is entitled to a legal defence, but the company Di Stefano has kept has not made him everyone's favourite and cuddliest lawyer.
He was also a friend of James Goldsmith (curiously styled in double apostrophes in the paper - "Jimmy Goldsmith"). Is this any coincidence, given that Goldsmith was notoriously litigious and an unabashed publicity-seeker? And you feel that Di Stefano is cut from similar cloth. He may well have a strong defence against charges against him in England, he may well be right in that these charges are politically motivated, and he may well be using the press to proclaim this defence, but in all of it, you detect a lack of balance. You are getting his views, and his alone.
Take his background. Fraud charges he has faced are glossed over. This is not, in other words, a study of the man, but a promotional exercise by someone who has defended some thoroughly unpleasant people. There is more than just a whiff of willing manipulation about the interview, which isn't really an interview, as he has not been pressed on anything, such as his background. Nor has he been challenged as to any moral issues with regard to the likes of Saddam or taken to task for believing that Manson was misunderstood.
What comes out of this is probably not what Di Stefano might have wanted. Because it is just a mouthpiece for him, sympathy evaporates. His desire to indict Blair is one that many might share, and there might also be many who agree with him that new charges of fraud and money-laundering in England do smack of political motives, but rather than garnering support, he loses it. A combination of his "friends", unquestioning inquiry on behalf of the interviewer and a sense of a perversely deliberate but at the same time capricious maverickism on behalf of the interviewee leaves a less-than-attractive impression of Di Stefano.
Celebrity judges and celebrity lawyers may cultivate their own PR, but one wonders if they might not be better served either keeping quiet or employing someone to do the PR for them. Max Clifford for Di Stefano? Hmm, there's a thought.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Index for February 2011
Airlines, winter flights and - 14 February 2011
Alcúdia's golf course and history - 1 February 2011
Balearics Day, regional autonomy and - 27 February 2011
Can Picafort, road works in - 18 February 2011
Carnival in Mallorca - 15 February 2011
Census and electoral roll - 7 February 2011
Chopin's cell at Valldemossa - 4 February 2011
Commodity price rises - 17 February 2011
Compensation claims by British holidaymakers - 22 February 2011
Coup attempt 30th anniversary - 23 February 2011
Demons, fire-runs and health and safety - 13 February 2011
Easter and hotels opening - 10 February 2011
Educational standards in Mallorca - 16 February 2011
Fines: black economy, rentals, driving - 9 February 2011
Gaffes, tourism advertising - 19 February 2011
Giovanni di Stefano - 28 February 2011
Hairdressing salons - 26 February 2011
Jaume Font leaves the Partido Popular - 5 February 2011
Mad Dogs, The Inbetweeners and television tourism - 20 February 2011
Market positioning, Mallorca and - 3 February 2011
Nightlife, youth tourists and - 8 February 2011
Nueva Rumasa facing bankruptcy - 21 February 2011
Public decency - 6 February 2011
Puerto Pollensa, public works in - 11 February 2011
Rosa Estarás and Pula Golf - 2 February 2011
Sistema Integral de Calidad Turística en Destinos - 25 February 2011
Vote purchasing allegations - 24 February 2011
Zapatero and Spanish recovery - 12 February 2011
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