Postmasters and Impartial Justice (January 7th, 2024)

We beseech thee also to save and defend all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors; and specially thy servant CHARLES our King; that under him we may be godly and quietly governed: And grant unto his whole Council, and to all that are put in authority under him, that they may truly and indifferently minister justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of thy true religion, and virtue. (Thomas Cranmer: The Book of Common Prayer, 1549)

Whilst celebrating a BCP Communion Service with the faithful few gathered in Holy Trinity, Holtby, this morning I couldn’t help but reflect upon the big news story of the weekend.

As always, in a Prayer Book Communion Service, we prayed for all those in authority under the King (and therefore over us), that they may ‘truly and indifferently minister justice’. Words have subtly changed their meaning since the days when Archbishop Cranmer first penned them, and ‘indifferently’ is better rendered today as ‘impartially’, and the sentiment of the prayer is that those in authority should be fair and impartial and treat all people with equal justice.

The postmasters at the heart of the scandal unfolding before us at the moment, which has been described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, may well feel that a less generous definition of the word ‘indifferently’ better describes their treatment. They surely have been accused of a ‘wickedness and vice’ that is both unwarranted and unfair. And their accusers are the very people who should have been supporting and assisting them.

What has gone wrong with a system in which those in authority, can act so callously and cold-heartedly against their own branch managers? Do we really live in a land in which servants of the state can behave with such flagrant disregard, not just to the consequences of their actions on their staff, but to appropriate protocol, and indeed to common sense itself?  

What does it mean, to be a Minister of State, or a Civil Servant? The clue is in the titles themselves. The word ‘minister’ literally means ‘one who attends to the needs of others’. Similarly, a ‘servant’ is ‘one who performs duties for others’. This is the standard we expect from those who govern us. Hence, we have Ministers of State, assisted by Civil Servants. Their role is to serve the people of our nation.

Sadly, history shows that all too often, those who wield authority twist it and abuse it to their own benefit. The line between servanthood and domination appears to be all too thin.

This week has brought to our attention the scandal of postmasters who have been wrongfully accused of dishonesty and fraud, to the extend of forced repayment of non-existent debts, bankruptcy, criminal convictions, imprisonment, and for the desperate few, even suicide, all due to a faulty computer system. But where have our ‘ministers’ and ‘servants’ who should have been supporting the postmasters, and seeking their justice, been? Our Ministers of State appear to have been in denial, absolving themselves of responsibility, claiming that they cannot interfere in internal Post Office business, busily believing and defending their ‘servants’ in the Post Office, whilst our Post Office leaders (servants of our nation) – reputedly one of the most respected and respectable agencies within the establishment - appear to have been conducting a vendetta against their own employees – disbelieving the cries of honest people, quite demonstrably lying to protect their own interests, and denying plain common sense. One or two dishonest postmasters would be a creditable story, but more than 500 at the same time? Surely someone must have realised that something was amiss, and sought to find the real reason for the problem? And yet the leaders of our Post Office closed ranks, continued to charge their postmasters with horrendous claims, propagating a series of lies, even after it was patently apparent that further investigation was needed.

One disturbing aspect of this story is the lack of accountability that existed within a ‘respectable’ government institution. Forty years ago, we laughed at the sitcom ‘Yes Minister’, when the civil servants almost always got the better of the hapless minister. For the postmasters in this scandal, that joke is not so funny. An unaccountable government institution condemned them as guilty. It behaved as judge and jury, ignoring any facts which seemed to contradict their preconceived conclusions. Elected Ministers of State lacked the knowledge, experience, or moral fibre to argue against their own civil servants. They appear to have believed the Post Office’s own propaganda and asserted that it could not make any mistakes. In this instance, it appears that the present leader of the Liberal Democrats is the ‘fall guy’ who, as Minister at the time, failed to intervene and challenge the Post Office. There is little evidence that Ministers from any other political party have, or would have, behaved any differently.

To compound the horror of the situation, we read that the top executives at the Post Office were paid exorbitant salaries – the chief executive of the Post Office earned £4.5million pounds, included £2.2million in bonuses (bonuses!!) during her 7-year tenure. Perhaps that £2.2 million should be more appropriately added to the compensation fund for the postmasters. Nearly 3000 years ago, the prophet Amos wrote: ‘Let justice roll down like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream.’ Where is the justice in this ill-treatment of honest, hardworking people?

This morning, I prayed in the words of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer that those in authority ‘may truly and indifferently minister justice’. Cranmer lived in politically turbulent times. It seems that our public life has not improved much in the intervening 470 years. I wonder whether Cranmer would be surprised by that?