China has made a mockery of justice -  Clive Stafford Smith

It wouldn't have mattered to Clive Stafford Smith if Akmal Shaikh had been the sanest and most intelligent man alive. Or if he had masterminded the distribution of the entire world's heroin supply. Stafford Smith would still have opposed his execution. But it doesn't stop at being opposed to the death penalty. In Stafford Smith's world it is the murderers, rapists and terrorists who are the real victims.

...this brings up Clive's great central concept - which is that, in a sense, no one is guilty. Or, rather, that the question of their guilt is not what is interesting; what is interesting is why they did what they did, if they did it. Clive disliked Tony Blair's suggestion that the legal system needed to be “rebalanced” in favour of the victim. He sees the system as being inherently biased against the accused, and as pursuing vindictiveness at the expense of comprehension. The prosecutors, he argues, should be consumed with doubt about the guilt of those they prosecute. Those with the defending mentality should prosecute instead - a fascinating suggestion which he then undercuts. “I would never be a prosecutor,” he says emphatically. “ I just don't want to be. That just reflects my bias.”...

If he were a young lawyer starting out in Britain today, who would he seek to represent? “Paedophiles. Even Guardian readers hate paedophiles.”