Court of Injustice

There is no justice in a court of justice. The legal institution is there to punish; to make sure that whoever deserves what is bad, gets what is bad. Sometimes, it is true, compensations are given for damage, but never does it bestow a reward.

When we ask for justice, when we lament how life neglects to give us our fair share, it’s all the good things we are missing. We don’t complain when we escape punishment. Justice is goodness for ourselves and badness for the undeserving others.

Life is not just. We know we don’t get what we deserve for hard work and good intentions. If we use our imagination, we realize that other people live in the same predicament, but our cry to the heaven concerns only ourselves.

Earthly authorities are evoked when providence has failed to give to others the misery so generously bestowed onto us. Our neighbors hurt us, and justice demands revenge, we think.

The court of justice keeps taking away and reducing the goods of the community and we think it fair. If someone has too much, it must be removed, not to be given to someone else, but to be eliminated. We can’t tolerate that a criminal lives in freedom; the freedom must be taken away and destroyed. We put him in jail, and no one enjoys the freedom he lost; no one has gained, and we call it justice.

Put a danger in jail, and the danger is gone; maybe it is a solution, but it is not justice.

Justice is the right distribution; if something is taken away it should be given to someone else. Less is never more.

Call it a warning or call it revenge, but don’t call it justice. If we don’t deserve what is bad, no one does.