LAW AND JUST-ICE

Law and Justice are correlative and dependent on each other from the very beginning. Justice focuses on the remedy for aggrieved based on the theory of natural justice and morality for better society, but law on the other hand is a man made product to provide justice, maintain society and operations of state.

Probably the recent form of law is result of evolutionary process of rules based on natural justice, which that group of people agreed to follow for forming a just and peaceful society or in personal dealings in initial times. The evolution of law has reached to such a point where rule of law is more focused than rule of justice, now it’s more command of sovereign forced on its subjects rather following the principles of natural justice. And the focus of law is more on compliance and punishment on infringement rather providing remedy to aggrieve. It is probably a product, in result of governments became more & more strengthened. States are more concerned about punishing robber rather providing relief to aggrieve because the primary purpose of law is now to maintain governance and administration than justice.

William E. Gladstone said in 1842 “Justice delayed is justice denied” and no one listened him in last two centuries. I didn’t find any jurisdiction where instant justice is provided. The first court usually takes a year to decide the case and then first and second appeal as per legal systems of the jurisdictions, and if one or two revisions are added, the law takes years to provide just-ice. It’s not hearsay, I myself have seen cases filed by grandfather and pursued by grandson after decades. In this aspect of modern legal system, procedural laws are the biggest hurdle in deliverance of justice, majority of delays and injustices are caused by them. Even the formalities in recording and accepting witnesses and other evidences provide huge space for manipulation and delays. At criminal side majority of people remain behind the bars till the final decision of the case and at civil side a long uncertainty & stress. The appellate system is another source of delays in deliverance of justice. It is hard to say if all the judiciary except Supreme Court is incompetent to give final verdict.

Justice is no more free in modern legal system, now we have a legal industry and industry is always commercial. Though most of jurisdictions have legislation for reimbursement of expenses to the winner of the case, but it is not implemented in half of the world and for rest it is scarifying resistance in seeking justice. A rightful person disputing $5000 won’t go to court, because first he has to invest in court fees, lawyer fee, other miscellaneous expenses, hectic court proceedings etc. and if by chance he’ll lose the case than he has to pay the expense of other party as well, cumulatively he’ll be putting around $30000 at risk to get his $5000 back, is it justice? ?In many jurisdictions, one has to buy time in commercial courts for case proceedings.

The law has become so formal that justice relies on second hand information; the court system needs a bridging person between a judge and aggrieved whom we call lawyer. How can you meet the ends of justice when you have someone to manipulate the facts or case in accordance with applicable laws through his legal knowledge and skills before coming to court. A rich person can get an expensive well skilled lawyer, which can easily convert justice into just-ice through limitations of law. The issue aggrieved telling to a lawyer, can tell to a judge as well, and if for the sake of argument a judge needs assistance of a lawyer then it should be the problem of the court rather than aggrieved person.

Law is another effective tool for corruption either financial, moral or in any other way (negligence, nepotism, discrimination, etc.) against justice. The law which can be tilted towards either side leaves grey areas for manipulation, especially in presence of procedural laws and precedents. Precedents, a blunder of common law with justice; civil law system is a bit lenient in this regard. The defined principles in court decisions could have different impact neglected or not elaborated by court with a slight difference in facts of another case.

Rule of law is priority of every state and the basic purpose of law is to maintain governance and administration to which providing justice was a primary object in the beginning. The importance of law cannot be denied, especially in matters of governance, administration, development of social behavior, maintaining security and deliverance of justice, but development of law and its dominance have made the real justice approximately impossible or minimum defective.

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Ali Mustafa Rathore is a freelance columnist and blogger