Never mistake law for justice. Justice is an in ideal, and law is a tool.
— L E Modesitt Jr., American author
LAW is the handmaid of justice declared a legal scholar hoping to strike big in commerce. He probably did as thousands of law students, law practitioners and law professors began and continue their “occupassional” journeys.
And to add a final dose of masala to spice things up he said it is a handmaid, not a mistress! An insipid cocktail and a stale courtship that needs total separation.
Some “original thinkers” insist justice was here first, and that law is fashioned after it. They claim that justice is the template, the original blueprint, a deep well wherefrom law draws its life force.
Does justice look askance when law is on a frolic of its own?
For instance, Singapore’s law against chewing gum. Feeding pigeons in Venice is illegal. Canadians can’t keep rats as pets in Alberta, and you’re not allowed to paint a garage purple in Ontario, or carry a snake in public.
An unwashed car in Dubai can cost you a hefty fine! Chickens are not allowed to cross a street in Quitman, Georgia, USA. Taking a selfie with a sleeping Buddha in Sri Lanka can land you in jail for at least one week!
Under the Malaysian Indecent Advertisement Act 1953, one is forbidden from advertising for the treatment of syphilis. In fact, any advertisement for treatment of sexually transmitted diseases or any advertisement of aphrodisiac properties is an offence.
Under section 294 of the Malaysian Penal Code (Act 574) you can be fined or jailed for singing obscene songs in public. Bathing your pet in public is a breach of the Minor Offences Act 1955 (Act 336).
“This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice,” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. alerted a young lawyer making his first appearance in the US Supreme Court. Finding law and justice in the same chamber can be an exercise in comeuppance.
Here Justice Holmes was making a loud but subtle point being that His Honour believed in applying the law regardless of its legislatively demented worth, value, impact and effect.
Note, some judges are referred to as Justice so and so. Perhaps they do carry justice in their minds that seldom flow through their pens.
It is also an accepted principle of practice that a good lawyer knows the law and that a great lawyer knows the judge. Many in practice can relate to this as a moral and professional hazard.
Nationalist and non-violence champion M K Gandhi’s thoughtfully declared that “justice that love gives is a surrender, and that justice that the law gives is a punishment.” Freedom fighters know best.
Christopher Darden, one of the prosecutors in the O J Simpson “Trial of the Century,” remarked that “the law has no compassion, and justice is administered without compassion.” This infamous trial further divided America into black versus white which begat the Black Lives Matter movement.
The animal kingdom has a great sense of law and justice as it is bereft of reason except for pure unadulterated instinct. This could be the reason Aristotle believed, that man, at his best, is the noblest of all animals, but when separated from law, order and justice he is the worst.
We cannot help noticing that it is law book, not a book of justice. He or she is a “lawyer” not a “justiceor.” He or she is Law Lord, not a Justice Lord. Thankfully, we have a Palace of Justice in Putrajaya.
He broke the law, says the government that made the law but is unable to say he breached a code of justice. Two different incompatible partners must seek permanent separation.
There are Rules of Court, not Rules of Justice to refer to when a conflict of reasonable interests between two or more parties is being harvested in a court of law.
Victor Cousin, a legal thinker, observed that “the universal and absolute law is that natural justice which cannot be written down must appeal to the hearts of all.” He struck a raw nerve.
Man-made law is painfully and endlessly seeking definition, refinement, self-imposed limitations, self-inflicted impediments, selfish restrictions and senseless prohibitions.
Ultimately, when justice is divorced from law, mankind will have no choice but to resort to its animal instinct because at that point reason becomes the most naïve of all superstitions.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
