The Need for Justice

FOR thousands of years, men have wrestled with the problem of maintaining law and order. A multitude of regulations have been formulated to protect the person and property of individuals. To bring violators of law to justice, law enforcement bodies and judicial systems have been created. Despite man’s well-meaning efforts, however, no arrangement has been able to secure complete justice for all.

While many principled men have done their best to uphold human rights, others have profited from practicing injustice. For example, some years ago one North American judge was found guilty of receiving over $600,000 for judicial favors. Through legal loopholes known criminals have escaped punishment. Certain criminal lawyers have become wealthy by creating false alibis for their guilty clients and by using unscrupulous means to call into serious question the testimony of truthful witnesses.

Corruption is not the only obstacle that stands in the way of administering justice. At times the problem is outright incompetence. Cases have been handled by judges who were intoxicated, too bored to listen, too tired to keep from dozing during the trial or so ignorant of the law that their secretaries actually wrote the decisions.

Because of corruption and incompetence in high places, untold numbers of people have suffered. They have been wrongly confined to asylums and prisons or have even been sentenced to death. Women have been deprived of their husbands’ financial support. Children have been taken away from their parents. Entire estates have been lost to the rightful heirs.

Not infrequently lawless men never come to trial. In the present system of things, there simply is no way to rectify all the injury caused by backbiting, slander, gossip, fraud, scheming, half-truths, exaggerations and other ethical wrongs.

Truly, there is a need for balancing the scales of justice. An outstanding jurist of the 20th century alluded to the manner in which this could come about. When describing the “spirit of true liberty,” he stated that this spirit “has never quite forgotten that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.” But will there really be such a judgment? What reason do we have for believing that it will take place? How should this affect our lives even now?