3 THERE IS NO EQUALITY WITHOUT JUSTICE

The story of a snake and a frog.

NOTE: Because of responses,
I have decided to carry on with these 8 connected ideas.

There is no democracy without freedom;
there is no freedom without equality;
there is no equality without justice;
there is no justice without truth;
there is no truth without knowledge;
there is no knowledge without curiosity;
there is curiosity without empathy;
there is no empathy without kindness.

1 justice served
For justice to be served, the judiciary must be fair
to administer the word of the law
without prejudice nor allegiance to anyone, any group, nor to any ideology.
Judges must be from the mass of people,
educated as the mass of children
to have a view into people’s lives,
rather than ‘superior’ representatives of the rich and well-spoken.

In 2022 6.4% of children went to private (public) schools in England*.
33% of all English senior judges attended private schools
and 71% attended Oxbridge.
This 71% of all judges were drawn from 33% of the 6.4%,
those who were given the benefits of wealth
beyond the reach of most children.

How can there be a fair judiciary
when the prejudices and entitlements of another class
is so overwhelmingly sitting in judgement of a people they do not understand
and in many cases, may disdain on the basis of class alone?

I was once in court as a defence witness.
My analogue pre-Photoshop photographs
offered clear proof that a miner accused of slashing a policeman’s raincoat
(yes, his raincoat), was being bundled into the police station
while the policeman’s victimized raincoat
was being worn by the very same policeman
who was then standing next to the door
as the miner was arrested.
The thing was that the coat being worn by the policeman was not ripped.
The miner was clearly innocent,
but none the less he was given a year’s sentence.

During the trial, I was baselessly accused by the prosecuting barrister of having doctored the negatives.

The defence barrister made no effort to help me.
Both he and the judge were ‘very well spoken’,
they understood the rules of the game;
I was a young foreigner.
The judge asked me, with suspicion,
to explain how I manged to get so many images of the fight.
I explained that when there are masses of people involved in front of one’s camera,
the only thing to do is to release the shutter, pan the camera left or right,
expose, pan again and etc.
Then do the same with, in my case, a second camera.
The well-spoken judge sneered, “oh like a gunslinger with two six shooters in the old west?”
Laughs all around.

From the witness box, I asked the defence QC,
“was I to tolerate being made the focus of the judge’s anti-American derision?”
The defence QC seemed startled that I should dare ask a question;
the judge loudly banged his gavel and all but shouted in his well-spoken accent,
‘another word like that from you and I will charge you with contempt’.

Fair? Understanding? Unprejudiced? Searching for truth? 

The judiciary should have within its remit the leniency to consider mercy and grace
with the twin purpose to serve the victim and reform the guilty.

Within capitalism there are forceful powers mitigating against mercy and grace.
The new CEOs and hedge fund asset strippers have set their eyes on owning everything.
To accomplish this they have influenced the Tories and the Tory run state
to lower their taxes as they raise the taxes one way of another on the rest of us.
They have turned everything into a commodity
while using their media to convince us that private materialism
is superior to public wellbeing.
They have frozen or lowered wages relative to the cost of living.
They have in essence moved whatever wealth we had into their hands
not only creating smaller, less secure lives but as well denying us of the pleasures of the modern world.

Defenders of capitalism argue for freedom to do as they wish.
The problem is that as they poison our atmosphere causing climate change,
as they dump filth into our rivers,
as they hike the prices of food and rent to increase their profits,
as they reduce the staffs of schools and hospitals,
as they close libraries, food banks, youth centres etc
they do injury to us
against which we have little defence in law.
(Who can afford a lawyer?)
We become their victims
and the judges seem all too often to take the side of business against the individual.

Since it is clear that justice does not serve equality
and that people are oppressed in many ways
by the authorities, the law, the security services
and the way in which the economy functions to favour the wealthy,
there is no freedom for most people to become what they would become,
within a caring democratic system.
The lack of justice is cruel and tragically limits people’s ability
to reach their full potential.

Democracy as a model of how to live with and in freedom is a beautiful system,
but it is eaten by the snakes of capitalism
those who declaim their belief in liberty
and the right to do as they wish unhindered by laws.

From an old tale…
A  Snake goes down to the river and realises it can’t cross:
too fast, too deep, too many predators.
He sees a homeless Frog trying to sleep on the cold mud of the riverbank.
Snake, never short of turning someone’s misfortune into his own profit,
hisses for attention and then, as the sad Frog looks up,
Snake suggests that he climbs on Frog’s back
and as he, Frog, can swim unhindered to the other side,
Snake will be eternally in his debt.

Frog considers this for a moment and says
“but you’ll bite me with your poisonous fangs.”
Snake, in deal-making mode says,
“naa, if I did that, I too would drown and die”.
Poor Frog considers the contract and in his poverty, he accepts.
A promise is better than nothing.

Halfway across the river, Snake rears its head
and plunges his poisonous fangs into Frog’s neck.
Terrified and dying, Frog gasps,
“But why, you’ll also die?”
As he too takes his last breath, Snake says,
“it’s in my nature.”

There is no equality without justice.

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NOTES:
* in 2021, 4% of children went to private (public) schools in Scotland ,
2% in Wales not quite 1% in Northern Ireland.