Aug 7, 2024 3 min read rights of nature

Nature in Court – as Jury Oath

Last week, LFN founder Paul Powlesland was called to serve on a jury. For his oath, he decided to swear on what was most sacred to him: nature, via the River Roding, represented in the courtroom by a water sample in a small bottle.

As covered on the BBC website

As he came to undertake jury duty, Paul Powlesland realised that the usual non-religious affirmation didn't mean much to him. So he asked the judge if he could do something a little different – swear an oath on the River Roding, which is the third biggest river in London. Paul has been living by the Roding on a boat for seven years, surrounded by the wildlife, and feels a deep connection to it. He works to restore the habitat and protect the river through removing rubbish, planting trees and campaigning, as part of the River Roding Trust. Paul is both living and acting in a way that treats nature as sacred while campaigning for social and legal change which also respects this.

The oath Paul swore was:

“I swear by the River Roding, from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames, that I will faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence.”

In Paul's words, it was "a somewhat mad-cap week for animism and the sacredness of Nature in the English courts". Reflecting on the news coverage that it received, he said:

"I was genuinely surprised by the amount of interest in the oath, which seems to have captured a lot of people’s imaginations. I think it shows that support for the idea of Nature as alive is greater than we might realise and more people believe in the sacredness of Nature than we might think. It was lovely to receive messages from people who were inspired by the oath to do something similar. Here’s hoping it just the first of many similar interventions for Nature and the Earth in the legal system."

Photo of a print newspaper article on the story — As featured in the Telegraph

The oath was commented on in an amused observation from the judge in the case. After the jury delivered a verdict in our case, His Honour Judge Falk said in a wry tone: “You tried this case faithfully according to the evidence, as you took an oath to do... whether on a river or otherwise.”

Though this is not a typical oath, the legal consensus seems to be that the oath itself was valid under the Oaths Act 1978. However, to avoid having detailed legal argument to decide this, it was agreed that Paul would additionally give the standard affirmation as a 'belt and braces' approach.

Further coverage can be found here:

My local river is so dear to me that I swore my juror oath on it

The decision to recognise my local waterway as sacred in court is the start of nature having a place in the law