Erring ship captains and Lady Justice
We’re for the fair treatment of seafarers who figure in marine accidents, for due process, for legal assistance to the accused and for justice tempered with mercy. Those who are not, we dare say, are stone-hearted. But we don’t understand the calls for leniency towards the Filipino master of the MV Rena, which ran aground in October 2011 and caused New Zealand’s worst ever maritime environmental disaster, and the Italian master of the Costa Concordia, which partially sank after hitting a rock off the Italian coast in January 2012, killing at least 32 persons and injuring scores of others. (more…)
