THE LETTERS OF LAW AND THE FACE OF JUSTICE

Credits: NIV website

There must be a strong connection between the letters of law and the face or presentation of justice. For societies to develop and progress, there must be a link between what the makers of the law graft, what the interpreters of the law decides and declares, and what the seekers of justice and the onlookers perceive about what is grafted and interpreted. Justice, they say, must not only be said to have been done, it must necessarily be seen to have been done. There is no development and progress if the makers of the law claim to have done a good job, the interpreters and declarers of the law claim to have done wonderfully well but the wider members of society are seeing injustice. When these makers and interpreters of the law claim to have done the right thing but the average person in the society, including the intelligent ones, perceive injustice because they suspect that someone must have removed the blindfold from the eyes of the lady of justice so that the judgment given was done with her eyes open, trust is eroded. Why will someone summarize a judgment with the words of the late Russian Writer, Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, “We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying”?

It is possible that the perception of the wider society is wrong. It is possible that there is no such desecration of the temple of justice and there is no such violation of the lady of justice. However, why is it possible that the makers of the law and the interpreters are doing one thing but intelligent people in the society are seeing something else? What is creating the gap between what is claimed to have been done and what is seen and perceived to have been done? What is causing this trust deficit? Is it because of what someone has termed “implausibly undeniability”, that is, when a person struggles to explain away something that’s actually true, because the truth has suddenly become inconvenient or politically incorrect?

The danger of having this kind of unsettling situation is that it opens up the ugly doors of oppression, suppression and autocratic tendencies. The reason is not far-fetched, what the makers of the law have done and what the interpreters of the law have declared are considered the letters of law, but and unfortunately so, because it is entirely different from the face of justice, what is seen, perceived and felt about the judgment by the wider society, people will express themselves in different ways and the intelligent ones especially, will make efforts to bring the declared judgement out to the open court of public opinion for discussion, arguments and a “second trial”. They will try to bring out facts missed either by the makers of the law or its interpreters. This in most cases does not go down well with the executors of the law because as Denise Diderot noted, “those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders”. Efforts then will be made to silence those discussing the judgment and connecting the dots with what is seen and felt. Clampdown will set in and more actions, which the wider society will consider as further injustice, will be taken by those who want to execute the interpreted law. At the end, the conclusion will be that the government is an oppressive government. The society retrogresses. How can a society where this exists redeem itself?

There are no simple recommendations. But two things ae on my mind now. The first is that there should be humility on the sides of the executors of the law to listen to the discussions going on in the public space and engage with them with the assurance of reforms that will correct whatever has been perceived to be wrong. This will give hope to the populace that the future will be better. The second thing is that truthfulness should be embraced in all the dealings of the government with the citizens. Truth is the thing that can heal a wounded conscience and sets the society free.