The Michael Flynn prosecution, the law and politics

In this world of "globalisation", the top tiers of the legal profession operate across national boundaries. There are Australian lawyers (not including this one) who are admitted to practise law in one or more courts in the United States. However, you do not have to be in that limited category to recognize that the broad principles governing the resolution of judicial bias controversies (ostensible and actual) in the US federal court system resemble those which apply in Australia.

There is, however, a striking contrast in the application of those principles to any given case, in the language in which legal arguments are advanced in the two nations, and, it seems, in the role of an amicus curiae.

There is, for example, a conceptual distinction between, on the one hand, an amicus laying out the relevant law and factual material and the arguments that might have been made on the other side in what is an uncontested case and, on the other hand, advocating a partisan position on the merits of a specific controversy which is what Judge Sullivan has received if not solicited.

Regardless of who is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States of America, it seems likely that a miscellany of curious public onlookers will continue their endeavours to shine a bright light on something closer to the whole truth of the "Russiagate" escapade, the investigations it has spawned (including the pendi­­­ng Durham investigation), and the Flynn prosecution.