Bow down before Solomon
By Alain
Lévêque
The law is one thing. Justice is quite another. Laws are enacted by
politicians and the political class is hardly something one readily associates
with justice. Of course that is not to say that because most pollies tend to
pass laws which protect the interests of their party and those who control and
finance it that they are all fork-tongued thugs. No, some are good people like
you and … hmm, no true, my old grandad told me he met a good one back in 1944.
Anyway, the point be that once enacted, laws are administered by the legal
industry (judiciary). Here we are led to believe that once conniving lawyers
put on judge’s wigs that suddenly they all morph into mini-Solomons capable of
delivering flawless decisions and perfect justice.
The unfashionable truth is the legal industry provides legal services; it
does not dispense justice much less perfect justice. That commodity remains as
elusive for modern man as it was for troglodytes. Why? Because it is nigh
impossible for a perishable mammal in a cape and wig to deliver a truly
impartial and value-free judgment. For no matter how unbiased and even-handed
his reason for judgment may seem, you’ll find that it almost always stems from
the judge’s own personality and is often subconsciously tailored to fit his own
sets of values and beliefs. Delve a little deeper and you’ll see that his
upbringing, his parent’s values, his environment, and his social class moulded
his overall philosophy. So when a fellow mammal dons a black cape and a white
wig and assumes an artificial appearance, that doesn’t mean that he can
suddenly subdue his nature to deliver perfect justice, or more incredibly, that
his judgment should be worthy enough to be recorded and kept as a precedent.
Still, in the absence of political interference, if you manage to catch a
good judge on a good day in a good mood, and your ethnicity, beliefs,
appearance, social class or personality does not irritate him too much, then a
just verdict is not impossible. So next time we show obeisance to his worship
or his honour, let’s not forget that we’re also bowing our heads to an old
system designed to prevent the lean many from dispossessing the bloated few.