The adjectives of imperfect justice<\/p>\n
Thanks to the insurance company PT Asuransi Jiwa Manulife
\nIndonesia, the word \"justice\" has acquired a resonance unknown so
\nfar. To my surprise, I discovered that just like there are many
\nshades in a hue, justice includes various types.<\/p>\n
You are traveling in a jam-packed bus. Your purse is snatched
\nand you immediately raise the alarm. You may have thought that
\nyour co-passengers were a docile lot, but no, injustice to a
\nfellow traveler galvanizes them into collective action. The
\nthief gets caught, beaten black and blue and the purse recovered.
\nThis is \"summary\" justice, hot, instant, delivered on the spot.<\/p>\n
A murder had taken place. Everyone knows that accused Number
\n1 committed the murder. But, no eyewitness would dare testify;
\neither they are threatened or bought off. On top of that,
\nhighly-paid defense lawyers exploit legal loopholes, like
\n\"establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt\" and \"the accused
\nis entitled to the benefit of the doubt\", to the hilt, and they
\nsteer justice away from a death sentence.<\/p>\n
The murdered man's family wonders whether the process of
\njustice was too meticulous and fastidious, or just a farce.
\nWhichever, the family members decide that justice should work the
\nway they think, and they way-lay the Number 1 and kill him. This
\nis \"raw\" justice, deployed when a court fails to deliver real
\njustice.<\/p>\n
Mario Puzo, the author of The Godfather, mentions in his books
\nhow delivering \"raw\" justice is an article of faith with the
\nmafia, and how because of this, it is not viewed with revulsion
\nbut has come to be accepted in certain sections of society.<\/p>\n
It is common knowledge that much to our dismay, powerful
\npeople evade justice. But, \"divine\" justice, sometimes also
\nreferred to as \"poetic\" justice, gets them sooner or later. Take
\nHitler. For all the absolute power he wielded and the terrible
\ndestruction he caused, he had, finally, nothing left but to kill
\nhimself in defeat and disgrace, and beg the few people left with
\nhim in his \"bunker\" to burn his body using petrol, violating his
\nown orders reserving the use of petrol only for army use.<\/p>\n
Again, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines is another classic
\nexample of \"poetic\" justice. For all his regality and divine
\npretensions with which he ruled Philippines, as he liked. He
\nultimately, was unable to handle the pent-up wrath of his own
\npeople. He fled the country in disgrace, and later returned, not
\nas a VVIP, but as air-cargo and traveled in a box in the hold of
\nthe aircraft. Is there any doubt that the wheels of justice
\ngrind slowly, but surely?<\/p>\n
Rarely, \"justice\" is put on a roller-coaster ride, such as the
\nrecent Manulife case. Justice, which used to get bouquets, got
\nbrickbats, from all sides. So much so, many felt that it would
\ndry up investment inflows to Indonesia and dubbed it, \"meat-axe\"
\njustice.<\/p>\n
Most lawsuits has a kind of symmetry. Debtors versus
\ncreditors in bankruptcy cases or husbands versus wives in divorce
\ncases to name a few examples.<\/p>\n
However, in the Manulife case, an intriguing feature was that
\nit was not clear who the defendant was and who the plaintiff was
\nbecause both parties to the suit happened to be the owners of
\nManulife, erstwhile and current. Failure to disentangle this has
\nmerited the epithet \"murky\" justice.<\/p>\n
Again, a dividend is an appropriation of profits. There is no
\nquestion of sharing the sale of proceeds for assets realized
\nthrough bankruptcy proceedings to take dividends home. Assets
\nprimarily belong to debtors, not equity holders. This mix up
\nbetween dividend and debt has earned the sobriquet \"muddled\"
\njustice.<\/p>\n
There is an eerie side, too. The judgment opens the way for
\nowners of a company to declare dividends for themselves and
\nliquidate those dividends by selling the assets of the company.
\nMaybe we can call this a sort of \"junk\" justice.<\/p>\n
Last, we may remember the case of the two cats with one piece
\nof cake that sought the help of a monkey to divide the cake
\nequally between them. The monkey, taking advantage of being the
\nadjudicator, went on taking a series of bites, under the pretext
\nof dividing the cake equally, and through this see-saw process,
\ngobbled up the whole cake, making the cats victims of \"bum\"
\njustice.<\/p>\n
Indeed, civilization dawned when mankind realized that under
\nthis type of \"ape-man\" justice, life was \"nasty, brutish and
\nshort\".<\/p>\n
Since then, civilization, a hallmark of society, and justice,
\na hallmark of human majesty, have marched together and changed
\nman from a beast to a citizen. This journey is still a work in
\nprogress here, and Indonesia has stated its goal is \"all for one,
\none for all\". When this summit of civilization is reached, we
\nwill have \"perfect\" justice, its true adjective, and along with
\nthat its natural byproduct, good governance.<\/p>\n
-- G.S. Edwin<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/the-adjectives-of-imperfect-justice-1447899208", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }