Wednesday 17 June 2015

Is the law really providing justice ?



Throughout our tour in Cappadocia, I met this heartful & loving lady in her 20s who sort of changed my perspective towards prisoners or in general, the law & justice (not that I had the worst perspective towards prisoners before this but it got me to ponder on a few things)

As a law student, you've always been taught that the law is create to accommodate others in providing justice. It changes within time, and adapts to cases, according to the majority of the society. 

But this lady I met earlier; Paripersia (a Mexican-Iranian girl) quoted,

'If the law is meant to bring justice, then all the corrupted politicians (or even all the politicians) in the world would be in prison. And the prisoners, usually in desperation due to poverty or lack of justice, would not even have to be in prisons in the first place'

Most of us would have looked down to prisoners. Discriminate them. Isolate them. But have we ever stopped and ponder, are we not at least a little bit responsible for what happened to them? Isn't the government as well ?

Imagine, if we live in a community, that helped each other. That treats each other equally and with respect. If all the wealth was evenly distributed or at least the gap between the rich and the poor wouldn't be as big as how it is now. If corruption or any crime committed is made to be punished. If the law really provides justice. 

They say the law is created to protect people's rights. To give them safety. Doesn't matter if you are the majority or minority. But we often see the faults in law, in failure to protect the minority's rights. For instance, the French Law does not protect much of Muslims and their rights in wearing headscarves to school.

On the other hand, another fault in the law that I've come to realise as well is that it actually fails to protect the rights of the poor in the world, which holds the majority of the population. Atleast 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. How much of the law has been created to protect these people? To prevent them from breaking the laws in the future? To provide them justice? Should it even be considered as just that the poor is suffering too much while seeing the rich live their lives so easily, only to leave them with more hatred and jealousy?

I understand that some policies are made in order to encounter the problem of poverty, but as much of a role they are in the society, they are mainly guidelines. And equity can only help one so little. 

So the question that has been lingering in my mind is that,

'Is the law really providing justice? Have we been educated on the wrong understanding on what justice really is? Are we, ourselves, even being just to others ?'


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