The law does not require the ISP actively scan their hosting website for child porn and they are not responsible for hosting contents. The law only comes in effective if they happen to come across child porn they are hosting. Since no ISP would actively scan their hosting website, first it is against customer’s privacy and second scanning cost a lot computer power hence money, it is almost pretty sure ISP won’t come across any child porn. Even they come across it in regular maintenance, there is not record to prove they really come across it. The first clause in new law is toothless.

The second part of the law require the ISP report to the police if someone notify there are child porn sites in their server. It would be too time consuming for the ISP to verify every complain. The most cost efficient approach is simply forward the report to the police and let the police determine whether the complained site hosts child porn. Since their is no punishment for sending false-positive report the police, there is no harm forward every single complains to the police and let them deal with it. If the ISP acts as a forwarder, why don’t the complainer send email to the police in the first place?

The new law does not cause any harm per se, it only gives us a false sense of security. The government makes lots of noise and the media think they did a good job fighting child porn, but at the end it just a show which won’t have much effect. I rather the government spend their effort wisely else where to protect our children than making a stupid and useless law. I suggest we tighten up the law to give those child molesters the one punishment they truly deserves, castration. For serious offenders, we should castrate them with no pain killer.

News clip From the Vancouver Sun

The federal government plans to introduce new legislation Tuesday forcing Internet providers to alert police if they encounter any host sites linked to child pornography, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

The federal government plans to introduce new legislation Tuesday forcing Internet providers to alert police if they encounter any host sites linked to child pornography, The Vancouver Sun has learned.
Photograph by: Nicky Loh, REUTERS

The federal government plans to introduce new legislation Tuesday forcing Internet providers to alert police if they encounter any host sites linked to child pornography, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

The Internet companies would also be forced to safeguard evidence if they believe a child-pornography offence has been committed using a server they provide, a senior government official confirmed Sunday.

The new bill also makes it mandatory that any tip received by Internet companies about potential child-porn sites be reported to a designated agency.

The legislation allows for fines to Internet providers who do not comply of up to $100,000 for corporations, and up to $10,000 and six months in jail for companies owned by a sole proprietor.

At present, Internet providers are not obligated by law to pass on information to law enforcement agencies, though many do so voluntarily.

Three provinces — Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia — have made it mandatory under child protection laws for Internet companies to call police if they suspect or have knowledge of online child porn.

The proposed law comes just days after the release of a study that found Canada is one of the leading countries in the world for hosting child-porn sites.

The report, released by Cybertip.ca, examined more than 15,000 child-porn websites worldwide and found Canada ranked second behind the U.S. in terms of the number of commercial porn sites featuring children.

Canada was found to host eight per cent of the sites — far behind the U.S., which hosts 65 per cent of the commercial child-porn sites worldwide.

“As strong as our laws are within Canada, no country is really free from this type of material existing on websites,” Cybertip director Signy Arnason said. “We have 60 countries . . . that were hosting child-sexual abuse content.”

The report also details how child-pornography websites cover their tracks. In one 48-hour period, Cybertip.ca watched a website cycle through 212 unique IP addresses in 16 different countries — making the specific location of the information very difficult for law enforcement to track.

And a recent report by the federal ombudsman for victims titled Every Image, Every Child, said the number of Internet images of “serious child abuse” quadrupled between 2003 and 2007 and that the images are getting more violent and depicting younger and younger children.

The new bill – called “An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service” — is considered to be complementary to two other bills. Those bills — C-46 and C-47 — were introduced last June and are still at the committee stage.

Bill C-46 — the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act — provides police with additional tools to obtain information from Internet providers related to any criminal investigation. The tools include preservation orders to freeze data for up to 21 days, production orders compelling a company to provide a customer’s e-mail or IP address, and tracking orders to require a cellphone company to use its network to assist police in finding a particular cellphone or BlackBerry user.

Bill C-47 — the Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act — allows police to obtain information about clients from Internet providers and forces those companies to have the technical ability to allow police to intercept information.

I think the the just punishment for sex offenders is castration. Cut it off, render them harmless and they can live everywhere they like

Aug 6th 2009 – The Economist
America has pioneered the harsh punishment of sex offenders. Does it work?

ONE day in 1996 the lights went off in a classroom in Georgia so that the students could watch a video. Wendy Whitaker, a 17-year-old pupil at the time, was sitting near the back. The boy next to her suggested that, since it was dark, she could perform oral sex on him without anyone noticing. She obliged. And that single teenage fumble wrecked her life.

Her classmate was three weeks shy of his 16th birthday. That made Ms Whitaker a criminal. She was arrested and charged with sodomy, which in Georgia can refer to oral sex. She met her court-appointed lawyer five minutes before the hearing. He told her to plead guilty. She did not really understand what was going on, so she did as she was told.

She was sentenced to five years on probation. Not being the most organised of people, she failed to meet all the conditions, such as checking in regularly with her probation officer. For a series of technical violations, she was incarcerated for more than a year, in the county jail, the state women’s prison and a boot camp. “I was in there with people who killed people. It’s crazy,” she says.

She finished her probation in 2002. But her ordeal continues. Georgia puts sex offenders on a public registry. Ms Whitaker’s name, photograph and address are easily accessible online, along with the information that she was convicted of “sodomy”. The website does not explain what she actually did. But since it describes itself as a list of people who have “been convicted of a criminal offence against a victim who is a minor or any dangerous sexual offence”, it makes it sound as if she did something terrible to a helpless child. She sees people whispering, and parents pulling their children indoors when she walks by.
Punish first, think later

The registry is a gold mine for lazy journalists. A local television station featured Ms Whitaker in a spot on local sex offenders, broadcasting a helpful map showing where she lives but leaving the specifics of the crime to each viewer’s fearful imagination. “My husband’s family saw me on TV,” she says. “That’s embarrassing.”

What Ms Whitaker did is no longer a crime in Georgia. The state’s sodomy laws, which in 1996 barred oral sex even between willing spouses, were struck down by court rulings in 1998 and 2003. And since 2006, thanks to a “Romeo and Juliet” clause in a sex-crimes law, consensual sex between two teenagers has been a misdemeanour, not a crime, if one partner is underage but no more than four years younger than the other.

The Romeo and Juliet clause was not retroactive, however, so Ms Whitaker is stuck on the register, and subject to extraordinary restrictions. Registered sex offenders in Georgia are barred from living within 1,000 feet of anywhere children may congregate, such as a school, a park, a library, or a swimming pool. They are also banned from working within 1,000 feet of a school or a child-care centre. Since the church at the end of Ms Whitaker’s street houses a child-care centre, she was evicted from her home. Her husband, who worked for the county dog-catching department, moved with her, lost his job and with it their health insurance.

Thanks to a lawsuit filed by the Southern Centre for Human Rights, a group that campaigns against rough justice, Ms Whitaker won an injunction allowing her to return home. But her husband did not get his job back, and now works as a labourer. The two of them are struggling financially. And Ms Whitaker is still fighting to get her name removed from the registry. “When you’re a teenager, you do stuff,” she says. “You don’t think you’ll be paying for it when you’re nearly 30.”

Every American state keeps a register of sex offenders. California has had one since 1947, but most states started theirs in the 1990s. Many people assume that anyone listed on a sex-offender registry must be a rapist or a child molester. But most states spread the net much more widely. A report by Sarah Tofte of Human Rights Watch, a pressure group, found that at least five states required men to register if they were caught visiting prostitutes. At least 13 required it for urinating in public (in two of which, only if a child was present). No fewer than 29 states required registration for teenagers who had consensual sex with another teenager. And 32 states registered flashers and streakers.

Because so many offences require registration, the number of registered sex offenders in America has exploded. As of December last year, there were 674,000 of them, according to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. If they were all crammed into a single state, it would be more populous than Wyoming, Vermont or North Dakota. As a share of its population, America registers more than four times as many people as Britain, which is unusually harsh on sex offenders. America’s registers keep swelling, not least because in 17 states, registration is for life.
Illustration by Noma Barr

Georgia has more than 17,000 registered sex offenders. Some are highly dangerous. But many are not. And it is fiendishly hard for anyone browsing the registry to tell the one from the other. The Georgia Sex Offender Registration Review Board, an official body, assessed a sample of offenders on the registry last year and concluded that 65% of them posed little threat. Another 30% were potentially threatening, and 5% were clearly dangerous. The board recommended that the first group be allowed to live and work wherever they liked. The second group could reasonably be barred from living or working in certain places, said the board, and the third group should be subject to tight restrictions and a lifetime of monitoring. A very small number “just over 100” are classified as “predators”, which means they have a compulsion to commit sex offences. When not in jail, predators must wear ankle bracelets that track where they are.

Despite the board’s findings, non-violent offenders remain listed and subject to a giant cobweb of controls. One rule, championed by Georgia’s House majority leader, banned them from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. This proved unworkable. Thomas Brown, the sheriff of DeKalb county near Atlanta, mapped the bus stops in his patch and realised that he would have to evict all 490 of the sex offenders living there. Other than the bottom of a lake or the middle of a forest, there was hardly anywhere in Georgia for them to live legally. In the end Georgia’s courts stepped in and suspended the bus-stop rule, along with another barring sex offenders from volunteering in churches. But most other restrictions remain.

Sex-offender registries are popular. Rape and child molestation are terrible crimes that can traumatise their victims for life. All parents want to protect their children from sexual predators, so politicians can nearly always win votes by promising curbs on them. Those who object can be called soft on child-molesters, a label most politicians would rather avoid. This creates a ratchet effect. Every lawmaker who wants to sound tough on sex offenders has to propose a law tougher than the one enacted by the last politician who wanted to sound tough on sex offenders.
A self-defeating pillory

So laws get harsher and harsher. But that does not necessarily mean they get better. If there are thousands of offenders on a registry, it is harder to keep track of the most dangerous ones. Budgets are tight. Georgia’s sheriffs complain that they have been given no extra money or manpower to help them keep the huge and swelling sex-offenders’ registry up to date or to police its confusing mass of rules. Terry Norris of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association cites a man who was convicted of statutory rape two decades ago for having consensual sex with his high-school sweetheart, to whom he is now married. “It doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make him a threat to anybody,” says Mr Norris. “We spend the same amount of time on that guy as on someone who’s done something heinous.”

Money spent on evicting sex offenders cannot be spent on treating them. Does this matter? Politicians pushing the get-tough approach sometimes claim that sex offenders are mostly incorrigible: that three-quarters or even nine out of ten of them reoffend. It is not clear where they find such numbers. A study of nearly 10,000 male sex offenders in 15 American states found that 5% were rearrested for a sex crime within three years. A meta-analysis of 29,000 sex offenders in Canada, Britain and America found that 24% had reoffended after 15 years.

That is obviously still too high. Whether or not treatment can help is disputed. A Californian study of sex offenders who underwent “relapse prevention”, counselling of the sort that alcoholics get from Alcoholics Anonymous, found that it was useless. But a meta-analysis of 23 studies by Karl Hanson of Canada’s department of public safety found that psychological therapy was associated with a 43% drop in recidivism. Some offenders—particularly men who rape boys—are extremely hard to treat. Some will never change until they are too old to feel sexual urges. But some types of treatment appear to work for some people and further research could yield more breakthroughs.

Publicising sex offenders’ addresses makes them vulnerable to vigilantism. In April 2006, for example, a vigilante shot and killed two sex offenders in Maine after finding their addresses on the registry. One of the victims had been convicted of having consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 19. In Washington state in 2005 a man posed as an FBI agent to enter the home of two sex offenders, warning them that they were on a “hit list” on the internet. Then he killed them.

Murders of sex offenders are rare, but harassment is common. Most of the offenders interviewed for this article said they had experienced it. “Bill”, who spent nine months in jail for having consensual sex with a 15-year-old when he was 27 and is now registered in North Carolina, says someone put up posters with his photograph on them around his district. (In at least four states, each offender’s profile on the online registry comes with a handy “click to print” function.) The local kids promptly stopped playing with Bill’s three children. And someone started leaving chopped-up sausages on his car, a possible reference to castration. Bill and his family moved house.

Jill Levenson, of Lynn University in Florida, says half of registered sex offenders have trouble finding jobs. From 20% to 40% say they have had to move house because a landlord or neighbour realised they were sex offenders. And most report feeling depressed, hopeless or afraid.

“Mike” spent a year and a half behind bars for statutory rape after having sex with a girl who said she was 17, but was two years younger. He was 22 at the time. Since his release, he has struggled to hold down a job. Once, he found work as a security guard, but his probation officer told him to quit, since the uniform lent him an air of authority, which would not do.

He is now unemployed, and lives in a flophouse in Atlanta between a jail and a strip club. The area is too desolate to have any schools or parks, so he is allowed to live there. His neighbours are mostly other sex offenders and mentally ill folk who talk to themselves. “It’s Bumville,” sighs Mike. His ambition is to get a job, keep it and move out. Any job will do, he says.

Several studies suggest that making it harder for sex offenders to find a home or a job makes them more likely to reoffend. Gwenda Willis and Randolph Grace of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, for example, found that the lack of a place to live was “significantly related to sexual recidivism”. Candace Kruttschnitt and Christopher Uggen of the University of Minnesota and Kelly Shelton of the Minnesota Department of Corrections tracked 556 sex offenders on probation and found less recidivism among those with a history of stable employment.

Some bosses do not mind hiring sex offenders, if they know the full story and the offender does not seem dangerous. But an accessible online registry makes it all but certain that a colleague or a customer will find out about a sexual conviction. Sex offenders often report being sacked for no apparent reason. Mike had a job at a cake shop. His boss knew about his record. But one day, without warning, he was fired.

Publicly accessible sex-offender registries are intended to keep people safe. But there is little evidence that they do. A study by Kristen Zgoba of the New Jersey Department of Corrections found that the state’s system for registering sex offenders and warning their neighbours cost millions of dollars and had no discernible effect on the number of sex crimes. Restricting where sex offenders can live is supposed to keep them away from potential victims, but it is doubtful that this works. A determined predator can always catch a bus.

Laws that make life hard for sex offenders also affect their families. A survey by Ms Levenson found that 86% of family members felt stressed because of registration and residence rules, and 49% feared for their own safety. “It’s very difficult,” says Bill. “Pretty much all the things that make you a good father are now illegal for me to do.” He cannot take his children to a park, a pool, or a museum. He cannot be at any of their school events. And his children are ostracised. “The parents find out I’m registered and that’s it,” he sighs.

The penalties for sex offenders who break the rules can be severe. In Georgia the first time you fail to provide an accurate address or register annually with the county sheriff to be photographed and fingerprinted, you face ten to 30 years in prison. The second time: life. Yet because living on a public sex-offender registry is so wretched, many abscond.

Some states have decided that harsher sex laws are not always better. Iowa has sharply reduced the number of sex offences for which residency restrictions apply. Previously, all Iowan sex offenders who had abused children were barred from living within 2,000 feet of a school or child-care centre. Since where offenders lived was defined as where they slept, many would spend the day at home with their families and sleep at night in their cars at a highway rest stop. “That made no sense,” says Corwin Ritchie of the Iowa County Attorneys Association. “We don’t try to monitor where possible bank robbers sleep.”

The Iowan politicians who relaxed the law gave themselves cover by adding a new rule against “loitering” near schools. Mr Ritchie thinks the new rules are better, but he would rather get rid of the residency restrictions entirely and let probation officers make recommendations for each individual offender.
No quarter

Nationwide, the trend is to keep getting stricter. In 1994 Congress ordered all states that had not yet done so to set up sex-offender registries or lose some funding. Two years later it ordered them to register the most serious offenders for life. In 2006 it passed the Adam Walsh Act, named for a six-year-old boy who was kidnapped and beheaded, broadening the categories of offence for which registration is required and obliging all states to upload their registries to a national database. States had until this summer to comply with that provision. Some objected. In May they were given another year’s breathing space.
Illustration by Noma Barr

Other countries now seem to be following America’s lead. Hottest on its heels is Britain, where the sex-offenders’ registry includes children as young as 11. The British list is not open to the public, but in some areas parents may ask for a check on anyone who has unsupervised access to their child. France, too, now has a closed national directory of sex-offenders, as does Austria, which brought in some American-style movement restrictions on sex offenders earlier this year. After the disappearance in Portugal in 2007 of Madeleine McCann, a British toddler, some European politicians have called for a pan-European registry.

Human Rights Watch urges America to scale back its sex-offender registries. Those convicted of minor, non-violent offences should not be required to register, says Ms Tofte. Nor should juveniles. Sex offenders should be individually assessed, and only those judged likely to rape someone or abuse a child should be registered. Such decisions should be regularly reviewed and offenders who are rehabilitated (or who grow too old to reoffend) should be removed from the registry. The information on sex-offender registries should be held by the police, not published online, says Ms Tofte, and released “on a need-to-know basis”. Blanket bans on all sex offenders living and working in certain areas should be abolished. Instead, it makes sense for the most dangerous offenders sometimes to face tailored restrictions as a condition of parole.

That package of reforms would bring America in line with the strictest laws in other rich countries. But few politicians would have the courage to back it. “Jane”, the mother of a sex offender in Georgia, says she sent a letter to her senator, Saxby Chambliss, urging such reforms. “They didn’t even read it,” she says. “They just sent me a form letter assuring me that they were in favour of every sex offender law, and that [Senator Chambliss] has grandchildren he wants to protect.”

撇開法庭戲不談﹐這劇集是環繞兩對男女主角的愛情故事。一對是馬國 明和官恩娜上演的小姐與流岷﹐另一對是陳健峰和李詩韻上演的現代陳世美驚雲。劇集中段陳健峰替官恩娜父親打工﹐馬國明開解失戀的李詩韻﹐我還以為會變成玩 交換伴侶﹐怎料什麼事情也沒有發生﹐打工的正正經經打工﹐開解的更是一對出場去開解別人。這套劇集很反常地完全沒有三角四角戀﹐兩對情侶都從一而終﹐幾許 風雨後有情人終成眷屬。

陳鍵峰和李詩韻這對沒有什麼特別﹐除了陳鍵峰初段未復牌出庭時英明神武﹐後段復牌後則越來越白痴﹐連辯護律師漠視 當事人利益的責任﹐刻意輸掉官司當作復仇的屎橋也想得出。我反而喜歡看馬國明和官恩娜這對歡喜怨家﹐一個是不良少年苦學成材的窮律師﹐另一個是億萬富豪千 金大小姐律師。雖然這配搭原本是很老套的陳腔濫調﹐不過加上中途殺出的馬國明私生女﹐讓這套愛情添上新鮮的完素。官恩娜與馬國明原本火星撞地球﹐屬於兩個 不同世界的人。剛巧馬國明的女兒出現﹐激發起官恩娜的母性。看見馬國明對女兒那份父愛的偉大﹐正是愛情至上主義者官恩娜撞景著的好男人。官恩娜雖是嬌生慣 養的大小姐﹐但她除了愛洗錢外天性不壞﹐甚至因為一直在溫室中長大﹐加上讀法律的關係﹐對真理和公義有一份很天真地執著。馬國明不要富貴追求公義的性恪﹐ 正好吻合官思娜心底的理想。馬國明被困遊艇跳海游回岸那一幕﹐他寧願不要美人也要堅持公義﹐足以讓官恩娜為他傾倒。

到了官恩娜宣告與馬國明結婚﹐父親認為馬國明配不起女兒而反對婚事。她父親其實也沒有資格說三道四﹐自己不也是和助手兼女兒的好友搭上搞不倫之戀。說起來 官恩娜自己已是超級有錢女﹐根本不希罕其他公子哥兒的身家。又不用怕結婚後要挨窮﹐揀個可以吃得他死死的馬國明做丈夫﹐比揀個可能會包情婦的有錢公子更幸 福。馬國明雖然窮﹐總算是個律師﹐也不算太失禮。他生活簡樸不愛花錢﹐不怕給人說吃軟飯﹐老婆的錢頂多是自己用來買衫。這對小姐與流民的組合看似沒有可能 走在一起﹐但細心分析兩人的性格﹐這段感情發展得很合理。當然馬國明女兒從中作扯線﹐作紅娘攝合爸爸媽媽很鬼馬有趣。雖然嚴重違反法律常識﹐但用案件帶動 兩人的感情發展﹐創作示愛救婚結婚那三場法庭戲的編劇值得一讚。

「律政新人王2」只有二十集﹐劇情主線集中水分不多﹐沒有多餘的無聊家人線。其他角色劇情的分枝戲份﹐最後也會合﹐成為小姐與流岷愛情故事的伏筆。馬國明 完全不靚仔﹐演起戲來比其他靠買樣的小生﹐讓觀眾看得舒服。陳健峰的戲份倒淪為悶場﹐不如乾脆刪掉讓劇情更清爽明快。總體來說這劇集不錯﹐達中上準﹐不妨 一看。

Boston Legal的幕後班底是由另一套長壽律師電視劇集The Practice原班人馬移師過來。事實上Boston Legal的主角曾在The Practice客串演出最後一季﹐角色大受歡迎電視台才為他獨立開拍一套新的電視劇集。Boston Legal在二零零五年首播﹐旋即贏得艾美獎和金球獎多個獎項﹐其中最受矚目的當然是獲得最佳男主角獎的冷面笑匠James Spader。 除了男主角是好戲之人外﹐其他佔戲頗重的配角均是影壇老前輩。星空奇遇(Star Trek)中當Captain Kirk的William Shatner﹐ 在劇中飾演律師行的冠名合伙人。曾經是法律界的奇材﹐一手創立在波士頓首屈一指的律師樓王國﹐不過因為患上老人痴呆而記憶力衰退﹐近年能力已大不如以前。可是他依然自視甚高死不認輸﹐兼且為老不尊貪威好色﹐每集必定給身邊的人帶來不少麻煩﹐亦給觀眾帶來很多笑話。他與主角的關係亦師亦友﹐二人在露臺談天是每集完結前的指定動作。看起來只是兩個中年男人飲酒食雪咖互相吐嘈﹐細心留意對白卻會體會出一絲絲的人生哲理。劇中律師行的另一冠名合伙人由Candice Bergen飾演﹐她就是八十年代紅極一時Murphy Brown電視劇中的Murphy Brown。在Boston Legal裏﹐她仍然保持Murphy Brown那份女強人本色﹐不論是對下屬對其他律師﹐在嘴巴上絕不饒人。她字字珠璣的搶白讓觀眾看得過癮﹐只有轉數超高的男主角才能與她針鋒相對﹐兩人唇槍舌劍擦出不少火花。

法庭戲份是這套電視劇吸引觀眾焦點﹐每集也有至少一個多則數個官司平行交錯地進行﹐每宗官司的結案陳詞更是讓人 拍案叫絕﹐與香港電視劇的法庭戲根本屬於不同層次。香港電視中的法律觀念很簡單﹐凡事也黑白分明﹐給觀眾說清楚那個是殺人犯﹐那個是無辜受冤枉的好人。好律師的責任就是申張正義﹐讓壞人惡有惡報﹐奸律師則走法律罅讓壞人消遙法外。大慨這根深蒂固觀念﹐自中國民間傳奇包青天﹐到清朝的狀師故事﹐一直到現代香港也沒有改變過。Boston Legal的背景是美國社會﹐法律精神比香港進步不知多少倍。法律是平衡社會上各方利益的制度﹐不同人有不同的價值觀﹐不同的價值觀對公義也各有不同的理解。控辯雙方不是只單純的找出被告有沒有犯罪﹐還是不同價值觀的較量﹐去解釋現有的法律條文﹐說服法官和陪審團作出判決﹐成為影響社會民生的案例。法律程序不只是判辨一個人有沒有犯罪﹐更重要的是分辨究竟什麼才算是犯罪。寫在紙上的法律條文是死的﹐要依靠由人組成的法庭去解釋﹐決定在什麼情況應用什麼條文。到底冒警擄人用私刑迫供去救被綁架的小朋友是正確的決定。還是就算會眼白白看著小朋友給被殺害﹐也要保障知情的第三者﹐限制警察不能對之濫刑呢﹖在學校科學課中應否教授創造論﹐還是校長有權解顧不合作的老師呢﹖醫生的責任是給病人最佳的醫療選擇﹐還是醫生可以把他的宗教道德觀強加病人身上﹐拒絕給強姦受害人開事後丸呢﹖劇中的官司涉獵範圍甚廣﹐上至死刑環保等重要議題﹐下至學校搞萬聖節化妝舞是否構成對宗教不尊重﹐冷藏復活的新科技算不算是變相安樂死也有。原來我們日常生活中在就算是一件很小事情的立場﹐也有源於我們道德價值觀的影響。劇中每一集每一單官司﹐除了讓律師雄辯滔淫增加劇情張力外﹐也同時給觀眾一個反思自己價值的機會。細心聆聽分析控辯雙方的理據﹐看看自己一直抱著的價值觀﹐能不能經得起理性的考驗。

Boston Legal己經播完兩季﹐正在上映的第三季儘管走勢依然凌勵﹐不過始終還是第一季最好看。這套電視劇拍了三季卒之逃不出所有法律劇集的通病﹐就是劇中角色有太多官司纏身﹐怎麼整間律師行大部份時間用來處理自己人的案件﹐不用賺錢接街外人的生意嗎﹖劇中除了幾個重要角色保持不變外﹐配角如走馬燈般的轉換﹐多則一季少則數集就會換人﹐保持觀眾的新鮮感。Boston Legal輕鬆惹笑背後藏著嚴肅議題的風格有別於一般的律師劇﹐不知道能否超越同一班底製作的The Pratice的八季或Ally McBeal的五季記錄呢﹖想著Boston Legal中的男主角Alan Shore善用人性黑暗面的結案陳詞﹐不知道他會對今日香港烏煙障氣的司法制度有什麼話說。對著不尊重法律精神強調行政主導的香港政府﹐大慨他也無能力改變那些惡法的既定判決。香港現實中沒有法律精神的土壤﹐在電視螢幕中虛疑世界自然沒有出色的律師劇集。不可能對編劇們有這樣高水平的要求了﹐還是給我們用法律花紙包裝的愛情戲就收貨算了。

「糖衣陷阱」是John Grisham的第二本小說也是他的成名作﹐讓他坐上了法律驚險小說的第一把交椅﹐成為全美國唯一兩個初版銷量過百萬本的其中一人(另一個初版銷過百萬本的作家是寫侏羅紀公園的Michael Crichton)。任何暢銷名著也逃不出給荷里活改篇的命運﹐ 「糖衣陷阱」的電影版由湯告魯斯主演。當年的他還是很靚仔有型﹐不像是今天信了邪教變得行為怪異。我印象中好像多年前看這套電影﹐不過細節差不多全忘記了。我以前一向不閱讀這類律師小說﹐不是特別抗拒也不是不喜歡﹐只是科幻小說看起來比較吸引﹐時間有效只好作出取捨。今次我只是在朋友家等吃飯時看見﹐記起湯告魯斯那套電影﹐隨手起來掀了幾頁﹐結果一發不可收捨﹐非要把小說拿回家讀完結局不可。我大慨知道這類小說的公式﹐主角身邊必定有個大險謀等著他。主角因為好奇比想把律師行的秘密查過水落石出而身陷險境﹐讀者也是因為好奇心不停追讀下去﹐看看主角如何化險為夷。小說的作者曾當律師﹐描寫律師生涯的筆觸十分傳神﹐娓娓道出初入行律師的辛酸﹐以及法律界光輝背後的陰暗面。

我用了一星期時間把小說看完﹐頭兩天馬不停蹄先看了半本﹐剩下的半部則攤長來看。後半部雖然依然寫得精彩﹐可能 是我隱約記得結局﹐沒有追看的迫切性﹐才放慢了閱讀的步划。反正也是例牌大團圓結局﹐好人沒事財色兼收﹐壞人則難逃法網。故事的主線是主角那間律師行其實是黑手黨名下的生意﹐表面上看似在替合法公司投資避稅﹐實際上是黑手黨的專業洗錢機器。律師行聘請身無分文的窮畢業生﹐指定要聘請已結婚的人﹐提供經濟誘因鼓勵他們落地生根開枝散葉﹐讓他們不能輕易離職脫身。新入職的律師最初只處理合法生意﹐到了時機成熟就會向他們招手加入犯罪集團。一方面用優厚的薪金吸引他們幹非法勾當﹐另一方面用妻兒子女的安全防止他們產生異心。過去幾個慘遭不幸的律師﹐就是因為想向警方告密而遭殺人滅口。今次我們的主角憑著機智和膽色﹐在律師行搜集犯罪證據﹐交給警察將犯人繩之於法。小說中的主角看似是身不由己﹐聯邦調查局迫他當二五仔﹐黑手黨因為他背叛而下追殺令﹐最後他才要夾著巨款逃亡海外。但想深一層這驚險橋段有點夾硬造作﹐其實主角的大可以光明正大的洗手不幹。他才剛剛入職沒有接觸過非法交易﹐清清白白不怕聯邦調查局告。他亦沒有任何內幕資料﹐辭職不幹也不會受到追殺﹐反正黑手黨也打算精簡人手﹐炒掉其他不知情的新律師。殺人不是一件便宜的事﹐根本不值得花錢在對黑手黨有任何威脅的人身上。不知主角太過好奇踩到了別人的禁忌﹐還是他太過貪心不捨得高薪厚職﹐才是讓他一步步泥足深陷﹐最後弄至要狼狽逃忘的田地呢﹖

無線新劇潮爆大狀很惹人注目﹐首先這是第一套打破丁蟹效應的秋官劇集﹐很有歷史意義﹐其次這真是一套很好看的電視劇。秋官的演技固然出色﹐想不到他差不多六十歲人還這樣有型﹐年紀比他輕的四哥就保養不到了。看他慢條絲理氣定神閒地說著對白﹐卻又是暗藏機鋒抵死寸爆人。這是一套很另類的喜劇﹐帶有香港銀幕上少見的英式幽默感。飾演大奸角的石修也入型入格﹐這個火爆財大氣粗的有錢佬仲過癮。尤其是兩個人反面後碰頭﹐大家笑裏藏刀話中帶刺﹐編劇寫得很精彩傳神。

這套劇是二十集的中篇﹐我那些看慣開無記劇集的同事說進度太快﹐不過我則覺得劇情節奏恰到好處﹐沒有拖泥帶水節外生枝﹐除了中段湯盈盈那半集。若果把她的戲份刪減了就可以說是完美了。這齣戲不是無記的行貨婆媽戲﹐而是以文載道讓觀眾反思人生的意義。秋官是專門幫富豪打官司的大狀﹐賺錢很多但卻幹著違背良心的事﹐為人自私只顧事業連妻女也離他而去。頭幾宗官司成功塑做出他的壞人形象﹐例如他利用法律漏洞收地把婆婆迫遷。只是他其實也不是完全壞透的人﹐他有一份對法律專業的遵嚴﹐在遊戲規則內走法律罅打贏官司是高明﹐但不屑為贏求官司去做出犯法的事。雖然女兒看不起他刻意疏遠他﹐做不到一個稱職的好父親﹐但希望作出補償的愛女之心卻是不容致疑。故事的發展就是隨著他在人生路上跌底﹐才醒覺到今是而昨非﹐爬起身改過來變成一個好人﹐贏回女兒尊敬﹐得到救贖。一般觀眾在秋官的經歷身上﹐可以找到共鳴。現實中沒有完全的壞人﹐也沒有完全的好人﹐大多數人也好像秋官般﹐心底裏其實也是個好人﹐不過因為種種原因而在幹壞事。在主旨這方面的訊息上很正面﹐簡單來說就是不要做壞人﹐做善事助人自己會開心﹐身邊的人亦會感受到不同。不過由始至終﹐秋官在對做事的態度從來沒有變過。只要是做好事﹐在法律容許范圍內﹐就算是要繞過規矩而行的方法也沒有所謂。不知這種以精叻為帥的做事態度﹐算不算也是香港的核心價值﹐所以在電視劇中無意地加以讚揚。我自己某程度上也很認同這價值觀﹐那就很難說這究竟這是對還是錯了。

雖然這套戲是以親情和人性爭扎為主﹐但無線劇集又怎可沒有愛情線呢。秋官一把年紀就算老當益壯﹐要拍談情說愛戲也會嚇跑觀眾﹐所以有關他感情只是輕輕帶過﹐盡是圍繞中年離婚男人的煩惱上。愛情線很自然落在年輕一代的主角身上。唐寧飾演秋官的女兒﹐角色非常討好惹人歡心﹐演技在新一輩中算幾好。她其實不算新人﹐是童星出身﹐以前也演過秋官的女兒﹐樣子甜美但不是大美人那類型。劇中的愛情線自然圍繞著她﹐她是一個背著爸爸聲名包伏的新進律司﹐富有正義感且有同情心﹐看來完全是無良父親的相反。介紹出場的過程很特別﹐在法庭上與父親打對台﹐功力不夠輸掉官司後﹐秋官過來示好搭訕﹐給蘇玉華以為秋官一把年紀還想追女仔。她的回答很妙﹐一語道出父女關係。在這劇中唐寧的愛情觀很獨特﹐在電視劇集中我從來沒有見過。她談戀愛不是講感覺也不是講身家條件﹐而是從價值觀看兩人夾不夾得來。她甩掉第一個醫生男友﹐故然他背著她偷食是原因之一﹐但更大的原因是在疏忽職守以至病人死亡的案件中﹐他為求自保講大話﹐令她對他的人格失去信任。第二個男友是同是律師秋官的徒弟﹐因為他為求贏官司不擇手段﹐令唐寧道最終不得不道不同不相為謀而分手。最後的真命天子陳建鋒﹐只是典型讀書不多但正直孝順的大好青年。也許兩人在背景的差距很大﹐但她選擇他是卻因為在精神上大家是同步。與在戲中演秋官女友的向海嵐是個很好的對比﹐她最後選擇下嫁石修﹐抱著正是那種只要他對她好﹐其他什麼事也可以不理的心態。

雖說這套戲的編劇用心良苦﹐在劇情中隱晦地加入發人深省的寓意﹐不過始終離不開在在需財的現實。秋官可以很有尊嚴地不做有錢佬的狗﹐正是因為如他自己所說的﹐他還有錢打少幾單官司不會餓死。在最後高潮的那宗官司﹐爭取賠償的幾個老工人就沒有資格過講尊嚴了。若不是秋官動之以利害﹐他們為求糊口只好卑躬屈膝地接受庭外和解。在愛情觀上﹐無線還是走不出竹門對竹門﹐木門對木門的安排。唐寧和陳健鋒這一對戀人﹐最後還是要陳健鋒得到幾億賠款﹐從貨車仔搖身一變成玩具廠太子爺﹐才可以有情人終成眷屬。

這齣戲兩段情的結局很有心思﹐沒有老土俗套畫公仔畫出腸的大團圓結局。一邊廂在飛機上重遇結伴遊英國﹐另一邊廂兩個電單車並排駛去﹐沒有用一句肉麻死人的我愛你﹐單用影像讓觀眾意會而不需要明言。以感情開始作為故事的結束﹐留給觀眾想像空間﹐正是編劇高明之處﹐很少無線劇集看完後有意猶未盡的感覺。不過無記千萬不要開拍續集﹐除非是可以保持水準的精品製作﹐不要搞不好把留下來的美好印象也砸壞。