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Jury Pool: Environmentalist Juror Swears His Oath on Water

Turns out you don’t have to follow the age-old oaths sworn before serving jury duty. This past week in a British court, one juror was permitted to swear on a river, which came as a surprise to many, not to mention to the river itself.

By Liz Days · August 5, 2024

Waterworks in court win the day! Nick Youngson/Pix4free

Disclaimer: While this article flows from the estuaries of facts, it does meander at times with satire.

Jury duty: For some of those called to do it, it’s an honorable responsibility, a chance to decide the fate and future of one’s fellow citizens; for others, it’s a horrifically boring punishment to avoid at all costs, which may involve escapist tactics like costumes and affected weirdness.

They made it through court security... but will they make it OUT of jury duty?  Greyloch/Flickr

For others still, it’s a (hopefully) brief and welcome respite from the drudgery of the work week and an opportunity to nap in a large room with strangers, minimal computer outlets, and a sassy bailiff for 3 or more days. But for one man in east London this past week, jury duty was an opportunity to make a statement close to his heart: “Nature is sacred.” The court, and the Earth, were listening.

Paul Powelsland, an environmentalist activist and barrister, came to jury duty not with the intention of swearing a secular oath or placing his hand on a bible but of producing a vial of water and swearing on the nearby River Roding, becoming probably the first person to make a legal oath in a British court based upon his devotion to a river. For the court, this was, of course, a welcome change of pace from basic bitch vows and from business tycoon jurors swearing on gold coins.

Juror Scrooge McDuck at McDuck Manor, preparing to swear an oath on his gold in a Grand Jury trial.  Twins/GoodFon

Powelsland’s oath was as follows: “I swear on the River Roding from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames that I will faithfully try the case and give a true verdict according to the evidence.” Beautiful. And yet the source of his allegiance had a few things to say about it.

“He’s been coming to my banks for years, planting trees, cleaning up, and playing Joni Mitchell’s song ‘River’ on repeat from his boombox. I thought it was sweet at first – no white man’s ever done something like that for me before – but it feels like an obsession now. Not to mention that’s a Christmas song and kind of depressing by the 10th time. What about ‘Cry Me a River’ by Timberlake, Paul? I know Justin can be problematic, but the song still hits.”
- The River Roding, who is currently dating the severely polluted River Thames

Was Powelsland’s oath just an environmentalist stunt? Well, this co-founder of Lawyers for Nature also had to give a secular affirmation to cover conventional legal bases, but he assured the court that for him, the river was his “god” whom he held “to be sacred” and that it was a meaningful promise for him. On top of this, it was an effective way of reminding the legal system that we have responsibilities towards our natural world. Unlike jury duty that might interfere with household or work commitments, ruin our astrobiology course schedule, or keep us from enjoying beach time at our brother’s 3rd destination wedding, humans’ duty towards mother earth is one we cannot defer. 

She's beauty and she's grace... (The River Roding)  Diamond Geezer/Flickr
“Look, I know I don’t have any legal representation here, like my cousins do in New Zealand, Spain, Ecuador, and Australia, and that’s obvious when you see British water companies (and companies worldwide) flooding me and my family with raw sewage & plastic which is totally disgusting. It does mean something that someone cares, but I don’t need to be, like, ‘prayed to’. I just need to be respected. So, thank you for standing up for me, Paul.  I want my vial back, though, cuz this was never gonna work. You're cute, but I definitely would’ve drowned you at some point.”
- The River Roding, winner of Valley Meadows "Curvy Waterways" Pageant 2022 and 2023