I spent this morning helping someone in their preparations for a Select Committee appearance later this month. We did a complete role-play with four other people playing Select Committee members (I was the chairman, natch!). It's an interesting experience both for the potential witnesses and those of us doing the grilling. Two of the others were former MPs so the witnesses felt that it was as near to the experience as they are going to get. I don't think politicians realise what a terrifying experience it can be for people. Indeed, I've got to give evidence on 'new media' to a Select Committee early in the New Year, so I can see for myself what people go through.
[plug]If anyone reading this feels the need for a similar session, I am sure my friends at Quintus Public Affairs would be delighted to hear from you. [/plug]
15 comments:
Natch???
Chav speak for 'naturally'
It isn't Chav it is Jive!
I bet you actually do play Select committee Chairman and hapless MP as well.Others favour Headmaster and naughty school girl/person but not you ...oh no.
"Insufficently prepared are you !!"
*whimper whimper...p ..please don`t ask the the follow on question....eeeek*
Perhaps you could give some role play advice for Tory MPs being asked some questions about immigration so that their latent prejudice doesn't show through ??
I don't know how it is with select committees, but in the courts there are very strict constraints on the rehearsing of witnesses.
Instead of paying consultants and/or pestering friends, why not take yer soapbox to Hyde Park corner for a REAL interrogation? Am guessing the grilling you'll receive there will be superior to anything a bunch of backbench MPs are likely to hurl yer way!
trumpeter lanfried.
witnesses in court hearings are allowed to refresh themselves by reading their statements.
I sat on a 'Justice@ working party looking at witnesses and one of the recommendations was a guide for them to acquaint them with the court, where everyone sat etc. and to give them some idea of the process.
If you think that witnesses and defendants are not 'led through' the process you and I are on different planets.
trumpeter (for once) confesses to ignorance!
If you are a civil servant called before a select committee, you can prepare for the experience via a National School of Government course (formerly Civil Service College).
And of course Ministers are rather comprehensivley rehearsed before each Question Time.
strapworld [4.32 PM] Of course witnesses can be led through the process. What they must not do is rehearse their evidence. To be more precise, they must not be drilled in what to say by their lawyers. The Bar Council has issued very clear guidelines on this point.
The rule about memory refreshing statements is now set out in s.139 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
"Trumpeter" and others - I've no idea as to the formal rights and wrongs of witness preparation, but there is quite a good US legal series airing at the moment called "Shark" where the lawyer anti-hero has built a mock courtroom in his basement and takes his staff and witnesses down there to teach and coach them.
I always did wonder whether that was legal. Certainly when I was once a prosecution witness I was advised quite clearly beforehand what the defence line-of-attack would be by the CPS lawyer and how to hold the line effectively to enable conviction.
House of Lords Select Committees are, I believe, tougher than those in the HoC. The members usually know what they are talking about and, most likely, more than you do.
anonymous [10.47 PM] They do a lot of this in the USA where the rules are different and witnesses are generally 'prepared'. It may not be a bad thing. Over here many cases (including many prosecutions) are lost because a witness, left to his own devices, has not given sufficient thought to what he will say.
On the other hand, an over-drilled witness can lose a case. This is said to have happened in the prosecution which followed the terrible Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York in 1911.
The recommendation of Strapworld's working party, that witnesses be allowed to refresh their memory from their statements, was certainly a step in the right direction.
Maybe Gordon Brown could practice not looking like an idiot at PMQs?
letters...
No doubt he does - think what he'd look like if he didn't!
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