The Magistrate who became President

Having just completed three years teaching in a Zambian rural school, and with my weight down to 9 stone after countless bouts of malaria and a minimalist diet, it was of some interest that the British Government was offering me a sponsored year at a University Dept of Education – a prospect that I viewed as a sort of rehabilitation programme for returning neo-colonialists. A course in West Wales sounded just the ticket.

Whilst there I had one of those road to Damascus moments. I’d heard that the Society of Law Students screened a certain film every year to packed houses. A Greek film, can you imagine, and it had one of the shortest titles in cinematic history, Z. Intrigued, I ambled along.

Set during the colonels’ regime, it depicts the murder investigation of a democratic politician (Yves Montand) by a seemingly pliable examining magistrate (Jean Louis Trintignant). Directed by darling of the left, Costa-Gavras, the film is constructed in such a way that you fully expect the magistrate to acquiesce to the powers that be, and do zilch. Instead, can you believe, he does his duty, and upholds the rule of law. In one of those great moments of cinema, he orders the arrest of the main suspects – a squalid group of senior police officers, who are clearly in cahoots with the leaders of the coup. The audience of pimply- nosed aspirant lawyers jumped for joy, and why not? Agenuine life affirming moment, and I left the auditorium pondering the meaning of life and wondering whether I needed a career change.

However the story doesn’t end with the credits. The magistrate was initially sent on state sponsored educational leave – bit like me really. But there the similarity ends. He was subsequently arrested and savagely tortured by the Greek military police. However, his fame had spread and it soon became apparent that there was no option for the colonels but to release him. Such was the esteem and the affection that he engendered in the Greek people, that he was eventually elected to the position of President of Greece.

And as for the colonels? Like all bullies they met their match and the home of democracy was democratic once more.

Few films have affected me as much as Z. It manages to raise fundamental quandaries such as, ‘How would I have acted?’ Not so long ago, our tv screens were showing us footage of demonstrating lawyers being viscously attacked by police in Pakistan and Zimbabwe, and yet when legal aid, so fundamental to the upholding of human rights, was heavily cut at around the same time, our response was muted to say the least.

We all have our own reasons for becoming lawyers, but I suspect deep down a lot of us could be persuaded to own up to motives that are on a slightly higher plane than merely the acquisition of common and garden lucre, and to that end, a film like Z is an uncomfortable but important reminder.

The significance of the film’s title? In Greek Z means he is alive. During the time of colonels, it was a crime punishable with imprisonment to display the letter in public. And the magistrate? Christos Sartzetakis is still alive and if you are sufficiently competent you can google into his web site, though it helps if you are fluent in Greek.