What is Mandelson’s alleged crime? Treason.

 

Betrayal is the word widely circulating. Prime Minister Keir Starmer repeats that he did not know what he now knows. Mandelson apparently failed to update Starmer’s information. It is beside the problem.

 

The legal core of the matter is that Mandelson shared UK state secrets to a foreign national who could have exploited them for personal gain. We will see if it is investigated, but we need to understand the matter.

 

Mandelson allegedly committed treason according to Roman and Germanic law.

 

According to the Lex Iulia de Maiestate (Digest 48.4 Basilica 60.36), treason is communicating with the enemy. If one considers economic competition as a state of conflict, then Mandelson divulged economically sensitive data to a competitor. According to Roman Law, he went against the State.

 

In Germanic law, it is a breach of trust (gothic 𐍄𐍂𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍅𐌰 tringwa). Trust is the relation between the subject and his ruler (Lex Visigothorum 2.1). In this case Mandelson broke the bond of trust between King Charles III and his role as servant to the crown.

 

Both Roman and Germanic law required either exile or capital punishment. Both these traditions are at the root of English law.

 

Another Roman law would also apply: lex de ambitu (law on corruption). Ambitus literally means ‘walking around’. It seems appropriate since it refers to someone who knows people and asks for money and favours from them. It is a corrupt network.

 

Julius Caesar (100-44) provided the main roman laws on treason (Cic. Phil. 1.9, 23, Suet. Iul, 42). It included a moral clause: exclusion from land and water. This meant that treason was equated with sacrilege, as the jurist Ulpian later pointed out.

 

Treason was immoral for the Ancients. It is not just a crime, but a pollution of a society. Plato (427-347BC) also equates treason with sacrilege (Plato Laws 9.856bd). It is an act ‘most hostile’ and a crime against the entire city. According to Athenian democracy, a traitor brings pollution (μίασμα, miasma) into the city. This is the topic of Sophocles’ Oedipus who had decreed that moral pollution should be eliminated from the city, without knowing that it was he who unwittingly brought shame to the community.

 

For most people, the legal point is a footnote. What is shocking are the crimes against children and women, for which Epstein was condemned and which others appear to have witnessed. The crimes of which Mandelson is accused are communicating secrets to the enemy, breach of the relation with his monarch. For the public, what is most significant is the disruption of public morality. Treason is not just illegal, but immoral.