We often hear the expression “Kangaroo Court” in popular media. But it’s also used in law, all the way up to the Supreme Court of the U.S. Williams v. United States defined the concept of a Kangaroo Court as,

…where police take matters in their own hands, seize victims, beat and pound them until they confess, there cannot be the slightest doubt that the police have deprived the victim of a right under the Constitution. It is the right of the accused to be tried by a legally constituted court, not by a kangaroo court. Hence when officers wring confessions from the accused by force and violence, they violate some of the most fundamental, basic, and well-established constitutional rights which every citizen enjoys.

Some contemporary commentators have looked at this description as most apt for the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.

Former prosecutors at Guantanomo claim they are “rigged, fraudulent, and thin on evidence against the accused.”

Michael Ratner was an adjunct professor of law at Columbia University Law School, and currently is the president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights. They represent 1,000 lawyers appealing government decisions.

Ratner said,

It’s a kangaroo court system and completely corrupt. Stalin had show trials, but at Guantanamo they are not even show trials because it all takes place in secret.

The Lawyer as a Hero

The 1979 classic, …And Justice for All, was a satirical portrayal of a Kangaroo Court and justice system gone corrupt.

The lawyer in this film is actually the good guy. Frank Rich said in Time magazine,

Not that Justice is completely devoid of heroism. Al Pacino stars in the film, playing an idealistic attorney who tries to buck the system. His is a difficult and tedious task. Pacino gets into so many screaming matches and moral dilemmas that he often seems to be acting all the roles in Dog Day Afternoon at once. As it happens, he acts them well, but not well enough to distract us from the enveloping silliness of the movie that surrounds him.

Some famous quotes from the film include:

Sam Kirkland: Are you a good lawyer? Honest?
Arthur Kirkland: Being honest doesn’t have much to do with being a lawyer. Sam Kirkland: If you’re not honest, you’ve got nothing.

But also,

William Zinoff: This is not the McCarthy hearings.
Arthur Kirkland: Oh that’s a relief. So you aren’t going to ask me ‘are you now or have you ever been a lawyer?’

But where does the expression, Kangaroo Court, actually come from?

Not From Down Under?

The term Kangaroo Court appears to be in usage by the 1849 Gold Rush.

Some claim that emerged at that time in California to describe the judicial system there, dealing with the problems that emerged with the Gold Rush.

The Etymology Dictionary states that it dates to 1853 Texas, referring to “proceeding by leaps.”

All Call Kangaroo when Called Before It

But because the term can be flung around at any court that one disagrees with, and often by those subject to such courts, how can a Kangaroo Court be identified?

Useful criteria include:

• violations (not lack) of procedure, precedents, and due process
• denial of fundamental justice
• a grossly incompetent or clearly biased judge
• vigilante proceedings established without authority and with no regard for the law

Rule of law societies such as Canada do not have Kangaroo Courts.

Even quasi-judicial proceedings cannot be described as such, as they are firmly grounded in legislation, and serve the purpose of upholding these specific laws through their mandate.

Updates

In a related post, Jason Cherniak said,

I can accept that some people don’t like HR commissions and tribunals. I do recognize that there may be good reason to say that our society has evolved enough that we can just create a tort of discrimination and let the courts deal with it by the usual process. However, anybody who makes that argument needs to do so with at least some basic knowledge about how Canadian law works. Otherwise, the argument reads like the ravings of a fool who just wants to complain about something.