Ashildr, the law that prevailed

By David Yuratich,

School of Law,

Royal Holloway University of London

I have been struck that much of the iconography associated with Ashildr raises, to my mind at least, comparisons with the idea and practice of the law.  This emphasises the argument I have made previously that the Doctor's adventures can be read as not only taking place in time and space, but also within the law; for the Twelfth Doctor at least, his adventures are shaped by a third force.  In this post I will explain why Ashildr can be said to represent 'the law' and make some brief and incomplete observations about this.

1. The Woman Who Lived.

In The Woman Who Lived, we are shown Ashildr's study.  It is filled with hundreds of her thick and bound diaries containing her vast life story.  This imagery is familiar to lawyers and law students.  For those who have not had the pleasure, the law reports, in which decided cases are published, are thick bound volumes.  Within these we find not just reports of what happened in those cases; we find binding precedent, persuasive statements, notable and notorious historical events, disagreement and dissent over fundamental principles, interpretations of legislation, and the evolution of the common law.  Ashildr's journals are not unlike the law reports.  Coincidentally they contain '800 years of adventure' - the legal database Westlaw contains case reports dating back a similar amount of time, to at least 1219 (albeit the accuracy and quality of many early reports is generally accepted to be poor).  We are told that Ashildr's diaries contain memories too numerous for her to remember, that they tell the story of her life, that some parts have been ripped out because they were too painful.  Similarly, the development of the common law is marked by decisions that have been half-forgotten and re-discovered, and by law that has been developed and re-developed.

The wisdom of the common law:
Ashildr sits in front of her diaries

Of course, these observations may well be a sign that it's been a very long term and that I should take a break from work (some of my students would no doubt agree).  The imagery is important though, because of Ashildr’s role in Series 9.  Steven Moffat has said that her immortality was intended to provide her with a perspective on events shaped by the whole of history.  She is a character 'who will know better than he [the Doctor] does' (see here at around 50 seconds).  The law is also supposed to know better than we do - or at least, it defines the boundaries in which we are required to act. 

2. Face The Raven, face the law.

A criticism that is often (not always) levelled at the law is that it undervalues the human element: law can translate nuanced issues into black-letter doctrine.  A famous example of this is the ‘twitter joke trial', where a joke made on twitter led to a conviction, quashed on appeal, for sending a menacing message via a public electronic communication network.  Of course, for each argument that the law has been a blunt object, there are examples of it being drafted or interpreted widely so individual circumstances may be properly considered; this is most evident in human rights law, where for example Section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 requires judges to read statutes widely, in so far as it is possible to do so without acting inconsistently with a fundamental feature of that statute, so that individual rights may be upheld (for more on what the European Convention on Human Rights requires see www.rightsinfo.org).

Ashildr highlights both sides of the law in Face The Raven.  She is the mayor of a trap street that is essentially a refugee camp for aliens.  She uses her position to protect her residents from the outside world and from each other.  Under her watch, they all appear human and are treated as equals in a society governed by law.  Ashildr's haven invites comparisons with the rule of law - when understood as the idea that everyone is entitled to equality and dignity under the law - and human rights law, particularly its role in protecting minorities.

A less positive imagination of the law she represents is also evident in this episode.  The plot revolves

The rule of the common law:
Ashildr governs the trap street

around Rigsy, accused by Ashildr of a murder he says he did not commit.  He has been sentenced to death and will die when a 'chronolock' tattoo on his neck reaches zero, unless the Doctor can prove his innocence.  Clara, essentially acting as Rigsy's lawyer, spots a loophole.  She decides to game things by transferring the chronolock from Rigsy to herself, surmising that this will remove him from harm's way without any negative consequences for her, since she is under Ashildr's protection.  Clara is wrong.  Her idea, borne of an unselfish desire to help Rigsy and a sense of justice for the falsely accused, falls foul of the black-letter of the law.  It turns out that the chronolock can only be passed on or removed once, and Clara is doomed.  It doesn't matter that she is innocent, or that she acted out of good motives.  Here we see how the law can (I stress not always) reduce complex situations to a simple matter of whether your actions fall within a narrowly-defined legal schematic. 

                                                                                                                                                              

More widely than this, when Clara's actions are compared to the Doctor's, two models of being a lawyer become evident.  Unlike Clara, the Doctor helps Rigsy solely by trying to prove his innocence.  His approach seems preferable, since it is motivated by a pursuit of the truth rather than a linguistic game.  But like Clara, the Doctor also faces negative consequences.  In finding out what is really going on, he is trapped.  Rigsy was framed so that the Doctor would visit the trap street, try to prove Rigsy’s innocence, and ultimately be captured by Ashildr to be sent to the Time Lords.  Like Clara, the Doctor’s engagement with the legal process in the trap street is a negative representation of the legal process: damned if you do and damned if you don’t, always at the mercy of legal logic.

3. Hell Bent (on bending the law).

Our final visit to Ashildr comes in Hell Bent. She meets the Doctor at the end of time itself, having outlived everything – a vision of an eternal, natural law.  Throughout Series 9 she has set clear rules within which the Doctor and Clara must act, with Face The Raven just one example.  Hell Bent shows the culmination of this as the Doctor realises he must part from Clara, a realisation he comes to following a dialogue with Ashildr.  She – the law – makes him realise that his travels with Clara are dangerous, universe-threatening in fact, and must cease.  Within this set of rules established by Ashildr, the Doctor seeks the most just solution he can think of: a memory wipe process where either his or Clara’s memories will be destroyed, without either knowing whose.  This is not unlike Dworkin’s approach to how judges decide ‘hard cases’, using principles of justice to seek the best solution within the law when there is no clear or easy answer.  The Doctor loses his memories but achieves his goal: he is separated from Clara and Ashildr’s demands are satisfied.

The justice of the common law:
Ashildr and Clara embark on new adventures

Ashildr’s role does not end here.  Clara, whose memories remain, has an opportunity to seek a solution to her own problems: the fact that she is supposed to return to the trap street where she must ultimately die, and her loss of the Doctor.  This time she identifies a loophole that is acceptable to Ashildr.  Clara realises that although she is ultimately destined to die in the trap street, she can traverse the Universe forever until she chooses to return there.  Unlike in Face The Raven, the Doctor and Clara’s legal arguments are allowed to succeed, albeit Clara gets the ‘best’ result, with her memories intact and an eternity of space and time to explore.  The tables are thereby turned, with the law ultimately benefitting Clara’s black-letter approach rather than the Doctor’s full-blooded pursuit for the just outcome.

All of this is because of Ashildr, who represents how the supposedly timeless social structure of the law determines the boundaries in which we, and the Doctor, live our lives.  She is neither adversary nor friend to the Doctor: she represents a dispassionate law that governs his adventures.