Justice

[highlyeccentric]

this is a story which I've heard in more or less the same form many, many times over the years. One of those I heard in from was Bishop Purity Malinga, of the Methodist Church of South Africa, so I assume some degree of accuracy to it. It's also a favourite of Peter Hobson, who is uniformly awesome. (Bron, if you've internalised any more details by virtue of working with him, please do share)

In the period immediately following the end of Apartheid in South Africa, so many crimes against black South Africans came to light that the state had neither the legislation nor the infrastructure to process them.
Instead, special community courts were set up, designed so that those who had committed the offences would be brought face to face with the individuals, families and communities they had injured, and would have to face their judgement.
A certain white police officer was brought to this court by a black woman. He had murdered her husband and sons, in her sight, dishonoured their bodies, and taken them away, refusing to tell her where he had disposed of them. She had been left alone, with no way to give her family a funeral or proper burial.
She brought him to this court, where his crimes were detailed and he admitted that he had done so. Then she was given the opportunity to stand before him in the courtroom and decide what sort of recompense he would pay.
This woman stood up, and she looked across the courtroom at the man who had murdered her family.
And she said to him: I want three things from you. You have taken everything from me, and I want you to give me three things.
The first is that you tell me what you did with the bodies of my husband and sons, so that I can give them a proper burial and can grieve.
You have left me alone, to grow old without my husband or sons to take care of my house and to keep me company. I have no one of my own to take care of.
You cannot replace my husband and sons. But the second thing I ask is that you keep me company in my old age. Visit me. Mow my lawn and fix my roof. Eat Sunday lunch with me. Give an old lady someone to care for.
The third thing I ask of you is that you stand up, here in this courtroom, and let me give you a hug.

This lady began to cross the courtroom. And this man fainted dead away, before the whole court.

Comments

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

I've heard that story before. I suspect it is apocryphal, as it turns up in various contexts.

It's a lovely thought, though, isn't it? Exactly what your religion is supposed to preach.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

i've heard a few variations on it, too. but i did hear that one from Purity Malinga, so i at least know the courts were established. i believe the phrase is "restorative justice"

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm pretty sure about the courts, yeah.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Exactly what your religion is supposed to preach

and, sadly, what we don't do enough. we keep pulling God down to our level :s

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

*non-committal tone*

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

nice noncommittal tone, that

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Conversations for a different time, as always.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

point is:

guilt stalls everything. guilt is wallowing in the moment.

fairness says both sides should suffer equally (difficult to manage, because how can you know how much the other party suffers?). Fairness puts two millstones around two necks and calls that resolution.

justice, on the other hand, neither denies that a wrong has been done, on the one hand, and hurt felt, on the other, nor forces either party to remain stuck in the wrong/hurt. Justice must somehow help people go *forward*.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

I agree with you so completely, it makes my chest hurt. The problem is, how do you address guilt? How do you ensure Justice is fair to both guilty and aggrieved?

And after justice has been dealt, how do you help both parties to move along?

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

i don't think justice is fair to either party :p
justice is... just. it's not just *to* people. perhaps it is just *between* people.

i don't know how you would do it, though.

me, i'd pray.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Define just, then.

I'm not being ornery here, I am genuinely seeking an answer.

And prayer may help the individual, but it cannot the state. Or the individual who does not pray, atheist or Buddhist or what have you.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

i just *gave* you the closest thing i have to a definition.

and i know. i draw a blank. i'm not sure that the state *can*.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

and that's not a fobb-off answer. it's not something i say very often.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

I know, and I appreciate the significance of such an answer for you.

[flamearrows.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. I think that justice is exactly that; people getting their just desserts - either the individuals in question (civil law) or society (criminal law) should be put in the same position as they were before the 'wrong' (civil) or 'crime' (criminal), insofar as money or corporal punishment can make it.

The alternative is saying that you know how to devise a more just result than that, which caters towards egotism and personal power more than I think you realise, when you boil it down to what actually and practically needs to be done at a judicial level or otherwise.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

you can tell who's the lawyer here :p

what do you make of a wrong which is outside of the legal system, then?

[flamearrows.livejournal.com]

Well, most 'material' wrongs are within the legal system - anything that can, in short, lead to quantifiable damage. Which is fairly broad, once you consider mental injury and the like. So I don't think the problem is as broad as you might think.

And so, if you have faith that the legal system can recognise wrongs and provide mechanisms to right them, everything else is sufficiently trivial not to merit the influence of "justice". True, this is only all nice and workable within countries with a highly developed legal system.

But if you're not willing to credit some smiling presence in the sky, as I am not, then the rest can be boiled down to "unlucky". I'm not willing to dismiss both incredible success and heart wrenching failure and suffering with some sort of mystical karmic system.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

You're right, as far as you go.

Our Hostess and I, though, were trying to discuss the problems of what happens where the justice system doesn't quite match up to reality -which is how it works- where the guilty punish themselves excessively, where the not-quite-so-guilty are overpunished, etc.

I don't think she was dismissing success and failure, or granting the credit to her invisible sky god. Except for her 'I'd pray' response, much of her answer was non-religious.

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

That's grace for you.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

that it is.

but also... just. grace is much more terrible to face and accept than retribution.

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

IMO grace is beyond just, because it transcends our human concepts of justice. It's almost not attached to the original act at all. (I'm thinking mostly of the hug here. That just blows my mind.)

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

hell yes.
grace is well beyond just.

grace is, however, the *bit* that makes that sort of justice possible.

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

Yep, agreed.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

It's also a favourite of Peter Hobson, who is uniformly awesome. (Bron, if you've internalised any more details by virtue of working with him, please do share)

*cough*

reminder to highly: pete is not god, and does have patches of humanly non-awesomeness!

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

shhh!

don't tell me things like that.