Killing a journalist is like killing a judge

So says UK law professor Gary Slapper in the Law Weblog of The Times of London, commenting on the killing of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya:

"Historically, in Britain, killing a judge was a form of treason because the judiciary stands between the people and the Crown. To attack a judge is to use violence against a personification of social order. Using that sort of criterion, assassinating a journalist in the modern world is a similar type of aggravated homicide."