Can you pinpoint a time in your life when you felt justified in your actions, confident with your choices, and secure in the knowledge that no matter what, your intentions were innocent, and the outcome was just right?
When it comes to justice, we look to the system we are a part of. Yet that system also has its flaws….it sometimes renders judgement disguised as justice.
If justice means being fair, might we consider the truth is not the same for all?
To know what it means to be fair requires empathy. If you cannot understand what it’s like to be in another’s shoes…who are you to tell them what fits?
If we are committed to our belief in justice, at the same time we must define it for what it is and hold accountability not in the system, but in its cracks.
Putting Justice on Trial
Justice is not served
To those less fortunate
What’s equal if not fair
Some laws are out of date
If you are in the system
And think that you are safe
Is everyone considered
With equal rights explained
Every single thought
Holds onto some preview
Of what was pre allowed
To be presented unto you
A world that is advanced
And yet we’re still behind
Laws that don’t consider
What equal rights define
Moral justice after the fact
Do unto others what you want back
Community safety is most justified
Counterintuitive… one must survive
The capacity to suffer
Extends beyond the crime
Defending guilty parties
Imprisons freedom in the mind
Emotion tells a story
Where reason disconnects
From possibilities
Not found in legal text
History of the people
Every single race
Shows the greatest error
We judge with our own hate
If taking life is wrong
Who is innocent
Doubt divides us all
What is the right decision?
If we are free to choose
When stacked against all odds
Such privilege if not granted
You know the system’s flawed
Collectively we are
A species born to reason
Justice goes to trial
For order and peacekeeping?
Professional consultants
Select the biased jury
Decisions preordained
Unleashing public fury
Murder is a crime
Blood is on your hands
When you disqualify
All the evidence
Right or wrong conviction
Facts that are not clear
Lives hang in the balance
12 strangers, not your peers
Motion after motion
Filter through the files
Objections overruled
Money runs for miles
Core proof that is removed
By those who want to win
Know it is allowed
And argue with their sins
The soul inside all persons
Has access to the truth
When it is denied
Faith is locked up too
Conscience is awareness
Feelings deep inside
Star witness that you know
Core truth you cannot hide
Crime is cultivated
By the greedy who ignore
They turn their backs on others
Creating rules on top of wars
Humanity is lost
When fairness is not present
For justice to be blind
One needs to fix the system
The wheels of justice turn slowly
On the wrists of those in power
Corruption takes its time
Climbing up the ladder
To uphold the scales of justice
Propriety is selected
The gown and the gavel
Sit between two sides of judgement
PaulaG
Hello Paula mam,
Your article is articulating powerful words that still some unfortunate ideas are felt in this world. Connecting to your core intention to share justice as a subject makes it more relevant in an advanced world, where equality is not in the same light for everyone. As said, empathy is a necessary ingredient for justice to taste. Faith for all good and truth helps us to be hopeful.
Thank you for sharing such a write-up to make humanity alive.
Aishwairiya, thank you so much for taking the time to read and for commenting here.
It is unfortunate that these ideas are still rummaging through the system that we are living in. The idea of justice has become more value for the business aspect of law and order in some cases. The true crime of intention is abandoned with the relevance of evidence and proof leaves out the story of a full investigation. How one collects and retrieves data is part of the process that serves a purpose for what benefit? I get that one needs structure, what I don’t get is that some parties have no support to access the knowledge required of that system. Money can pay for method…it cannot pay for truth. I trust not the words so much as the behaviour and find that we tend to believe what we want to hear. There are so many questions not asked and just as many answers that are incomplete. Doubt is a heavy weight on the hopeful but the truth is faithful till the end. To be treated equally is the balance we swing on with our system that is corrupted by those who are less inclined to make the necessary changes for fairness to be presented.
In my heart of hearts, life is about learning the system and when it comes to humanity, being open to that change and evolving with equality as opposed to locking it up.
If I can do anything as an observer of history, I can add words for humanity to ponder as a fellow person today
I am hopeful, for the appointment of equality to be part of the system.
May empathy open the door and listen before judgement throws out the key and locks up the truth.
Intention is more relevant than motive when it comes to answering God.
To what do we swear by if we do not honour it