rum court
n.— «Michael Ratner from the Centre for Constitutional Rights said: “The outcome has been predetermined when you go into one of these special, what I have to call, a kangaroo hearing, CSRT (Combatant Status Review Tribunal), you already have been determined to be a, quote, ‘enemy combatant.’ All this, what I call a ‘rum court,’ ‘rum secret court’ does is confirm that finding.”» —“Guantanamo: what does the future hold for its inmates?” EuroNews Mar. 29, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
When does a word’s past make it too sensitive to use in the present? In contra dancing, there’s a particular move that dancers traditionally call a gypsy. But there’s a growing recognition that many people find the term gypsy offensive. A group of...
When is it appropriate to use the word late to describe someone who has died? Late, in this sense, is short for lately deceased. There’s no hard and fast time frame, although it’s been suggested that anywhere from five to 30 years is about right...