You will not find the word mortocracy in a dictionary, because I have just invented it. It means government by the dead. Take the Geneva Convention. The people who wrote it back in 1949 are presumably now dead, and so by obeying the Geneva Convention we are allowing ourselves to be governed by people who are no longer alive.
This is not wrong in itself, but I believe in democracy - government by the people. If our political leaders are going to be constrained in their actions by the dictates of corpses, then they should do so only because those dictates remain relevant in the present day.
The Geneva Convention is in the news at the moment because a man called Haidar Ali Hussein is suing the British government for acting in breach of the convention during its illegal occupation of Iraq. Of course the government could respond by saying that it has no regard for the Geneva Convention on the grounds that as an elected government they are guided by the wishes of the electorate.
I don't suppose they will make that case however, and also I see no reason to believe that the British electorate wants the government to ignore the convention. Nevertheless it is fair to point out that the government may lose the lawsuit, in which case it will have to choose between honouring the ruling of the court or turning its back on the Geneva Convention.
I very much hope that the lawsuit will be successful.
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