Turning on Turtles

Stephen Sedley

• Fundamental Values edited by Kim Economides et al
  Hart, 359 pp, £40.00, December 2000, ISBN 1 84113 118 0

About ten years ago, bans were imposed by two French municipalities on local funfairs where, for a few francs, revellers had been permitted to shoot a dwarf from a cannon. The official reason was the maintenance of public order, but the regional courts which initially overturned the bans pointed out that the shows were entirely orderly. The real issue was human dignity; but the people whose dignity was being compromised were the dwarfs who made their living from the spectacle and were among the chief opponents of the ban. The Conseil d’Etat, the final appeal court, restored the prohibitions, deciding that public order included public morals and that these were violated by assaults on human dignity even in cases where the victim was willing.