Tipping the scales of justice

Tipping the scales of justice

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3 MIN READ

The individual conception of justice will always be varied and debatable. The law may prescribe one form of punishment for a particular crime, but the law does not recommend that everybody should be in agreement with what is meted out. Sometimes punishment cannot be severe enough. Especially in the case of the taking of a life. To balance that with the - legally decided upon - taking of the perpetrator's life doesn't seem answer enough, to the Pacifist in me. Even if the perpetrator's life was deemed to be socially worthless. It simply means two lives gone, no solution arrived at.

Often, justice comes bound with this cord labelled "inadequacy". It was the recent retelling of a case some time ago that got me really pondering the nature of justice. Here is a young woman, let's call her Kerry, whose only misfortune is that she happens to be sharing a room with a flat mate who is linked to a youth with a violent temper. Chemically, when in proximity, their personalities can be termed combustible. The said young man visits the flat, stays and usually leaves after a fiery outburst with Kerry's flat mate.

In the beginning, it was merely abusive language, rather coarse and strong, the kind that can make the hair curl involuntarily. Abusive behaviour, however, has a pattern of progression. When the tongue tires, the hands take over. A push here, a shove there, a slap, a punch, two punches... and counting.

Kerry contemplates moving out. (In hindsight, this was the high water mark in her wise assessment of the situation.) But she decides against moving because the flat is ideally situated, a mere walk away from where she works. It is in this manner that some of us forge our own destinies.

A week of eerie quiet goes by because the youth is out of station, he being a salesman of sorts. When he returns, it is Kerry that answers the door and lets him in. When he brushes past her in the narrow corridor she even feels the hardness tucked into his waistband, but cannot rationalise it is a firearm he carries. An hour goes by. Gentle murmuring punctuated by the occasional tinkle of laughter is heard from the room that is not Kerry's.

Later, in the dining-cum-kitchen, the clinking of glasses and the clattering of cutlery do not foretell of what is to come. Every sound is subdued. Another hour goes by. More murmuring ensues from the room that is not Kerry's. Around midnight, however, the deceptive veil of calm is rent aside harshly. Screams chase each other hysterically down the corridors.

Kerry, half way on the road to sleep, sits up. She can hear her flat mate pleading for help. Kerry moves out of bed, hastens to the other bedroom door, knocks imperatively (her last forthright action) and catches the blast from the firearm in the face. Perhaps she is too strong, for she doesn't die. Some say that would have been the better option. The gun-wielding offender flees but not for long. He is arrested and charged even before Kerry is wheeled into intensive care. He is tried and sentenced in due course. The judge awards him seven years.

Kerry, meanwhile, learns she will have to live with only one eye henceforth. Her features have been hideously rearranged, despite high-level plastic surgery. There is no way of linking her "before" and "after" pictures and saying, yes this is the same woman. Except perhaps by the spirit that continues to shine through. But the spirit doesn't show up in a photograph. She even gets her life together, finds time to marry and have a child. But somehow, to lock a man away for seven years and send him out physically whole again doesn't equate to destroying a young, innocent woman's looks forever. Even if he didn't manage to destroy the spirit. That's the imbalance of justice I was alluding to.

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney.

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