Justice: Doing what you're told, or doing what is right?

Justice is a concept that is appreciated by humans even from a young age: a child will briefly resent being punished for being told not to do something, but they'll understand that they're being punished for doing what they've been told not to do, and in future they will (hopefully) modify their behaviour so as to avoid punishment; punish a child who hasn't done anything wrong, and they'll throw a tantrum, and likely grow up resenting your unfair treatment forever. Even monkeys have a primitive appreciation for justice, recognizing the unfairness of being rewarded a lesser reward for completing the same task as another monkey. But as we grow older, our understanding of what is just becomes more complicated, and we have to establish rules to ensure that fairness and justice are achieved. But some professions within our society approach justice differently to others, with some approaches appearing to be rather questionable.

One profession which has a clearly defined doctrine outlining how they see justice as being achieved in their area, is the medical profession. Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath (or until very recently at least, they used to), which establishes the ethical principles upon which the medical profession operates. Among the tenets within the oath are that medical practitioners have a duty to use their medical training to benefit their fellow humans, and to respect and advance the field of medicine. This oath, dating back to Hippocrates in the 5th century BCE, establishes the duties of the medical profession, and stills serves as the basis of the ethical groundwork under which the medical profession stands to this day. It establishes that those who practice medicine have a duty in their jobs not only to treat their patients, but a more wider duty to society also, and the medical profession itself. It is easy to appreciate such a respectable position and the positive influence such principles have on the profession. But I always wondered why other professional fields don't likewise have their own oaths...

Before going to college, I had little need for understanding how the law was administered in the world, for how police arrested criminals and the courts sent them to prison. But as I got older, and I started to develop an appreciation of the significance of society and each of our places in it, such matters started to become of interest to me. The Hippocratic oath reaffirmed my adoration for the medical profession (how could you not adore those who dedicate their lives to improving the lives of others?), but I found myself feeling uneasy at the lack of such a defining oath existing in other areas, especially the legal system. After all, every citizen on Earth is subjected to laws, and can have the freedom that is granted to them by nature encroached upon for breaches of those laws that are made by other men. Of course, the Ancient Greeks couldn't establish a perfect understanding of how everything can and should operate (though they made a damn fine effort), but that isn't to say that we couldn't create our modern institutions founded upon our own beliefs of what is right and just. So why doesn't such a thing exist in our justice systems?

First of all, consider this: The motto of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), since adopted by other law enforcement agencies around the world, is "To protect and serve". That motto seemingly encompasses everything that law enforcement should be about; To protect the people, and serving on their behalf, it really doesn't get much simpler than that. But, as the Supreme Court of the US has ruled, the duties of police officers is not to protect and serve, but merely to enforce the laws. Now, some might say that of course the police ought to be enforcing the law, but I find it highly worrisome that "enforcing the law" is not synonymous with protecting and serving.

Before I became a Law student, I had only one source for my understanding of the legal profession: I'm sure most people would share my original perception of the law and the justice system in the English speaking parts of the world of two lawyers, in a courtroom, flexing their debating skills against each other before a jury and a judge to see who's the more artful word-smith. Of course, this perception is somewhat romanticized by the portrayal of lawyers on countless TV series devoted to the subject (as my first lecturer was quick to point out, being a lawyer is nothing like how it is shown in Suits), but the basic elements are there: a lawyer represents the defence, and another represents the prosecution, and the one who offers a more convincing argument regarding the facts of the case and the law, wins. This has always felt to me to be a far cry from how true justice should be achieved. Surely, it is not the most convincing lawyers that deserves to 'win', but the one who is representing the innocent party. This is a fundamental flaw that exists within the justice systems in English speaking parts of the world, and what causes me to hold our so-called "Justice system" in a rather poor regard. I say English speaking parts of the world, because it is only in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada (I know they speak French too, but shhh) that the law operates this way. What you will find in the rest of the world, Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa (we'll ignore Sharia Law that operates as the legal system in most Muslim countries, which is a whole other kettle of fish and beyond what I could accurately describe), is what is known as an Inquisitorial system, based on civil/Roman law.

In the English speaking part of the world, the Adversarial system dominates, and is characterized by the aforementioned process of two lawyers trying to essentially out-debate one another. But the Inquisitorial system prevalent in the rest of the world more closely resembles what I would consider to be a path to discovering what the right outcome in order to achieve justice is. The Inquisitorial system is characterized not by who is the most convincing of 2 lawyers, but, as the name suggests, an inquiry by the courts into the facts of an event and an attempt to discover the truth of what happened so as to rule in favour of the party that has been wronged. This is perhaps an oversimplification, and it would flippant of me to suggest that all lawyers in English speaking countries only care about winning their case and not about finding the truth. But is true to say that in such systems, lawyers have a duty not to uncovering the truth, but to defend their clients to the best of their ability. That is not to say that our adversarial system never achieves justice, though I think it would be accurate to say that justice is not by necessity, the most fundamental principle that permeates the legal profession. Inquisitorial systems meanwhile, appear to have the desire to seek justice at the forefront, with the legal systems built around that core pillar, which is surely the only way justice ought to be achieved.

This brings me to ask the question, what exactly is justice? Is it, as the US Supreme Court suggests, that people simply abide by and live up to the rules established around them, be that in the workplace by their superiors, in schools by their teachers, at home by their parents, or in their country by their politicians; or is it a dedication to achieving the right outcome and striving towards the truth? The principles upon which we are governed and by which we govern ourselves ought not to be taken lightly, as they affect our every action, and when ill founded, those actions can have drastic consequences.

In or Out?

Debates about Britain remaining in Europe are often heated, and with the referendum on our membership coming up on June 23, most people are still being betrayed by the politicians who refuse to give us a factual, informed dialogue. Everyone in the UK has a difficult decision to make in under two months time, and it is made that much harder by not being properly informed.

One issue that is brought up is of course jobs and so called "economic migrants": People coming in to the UK, working and taking the money out of the economy to send back home. Anybody would feel hard done by if the jobs they had applied for was taken by someone from another country thanks to an undercut in wages. But how could you blame a person for wanting a job? Surely most of the blame rests with the employers who decide not to give that job to a local, but instead opt for a cheaper migrant worker. After all, it is not unreasonable for a person to seek out a job wherever they can in order to support themselves or their family, and if someone was willing to offer me a job in another country, is it my position to consider all the people closer to that job who I'm depriving of wages, or is that down to the employer to consider?
Or perhaps it isn't even our employers' faults, but the Government's, for creating intolerable working environments. Just look at how our education secretary Nicky Morgan, and health secretary Jeremy Hunt, have been trying to strong arm their workers into accepting their almost universally reviled planned. Thankfully, Nicky Morgan has since backed down from her plans, but with the way these people treat our workers, I'm sure few would blame the workers for a mass exodus of the workforce (as might occur if Hunt refuses to back down from the Junior Doctor dispute, where the other countries in the UK would be happy to take them and offer them a happier time).

Immigration figures are probably the most contentious matter when it comes to the EU debate, due in no small part to the contribution of UKIP over the past couple of years. We've heard figures suggesting millions of people (or some sort of sub-human swarm) over the next 10-15 years if we remain, or even more millions if Turkey subsequently joins the EU. But if you look at the figures, you'll notice that it's nothing like the black and white picture it is being made out to be. Let us consider the figures for the year ending June 2015:
The number of emigrants exiting the UK, 300,000 , was just under half the number of immigrants entering the UK, at 636,000. Now that seems a very troubling statistic, 2 people coming in for every 1 that leaves. But if we delve a little deeper, all is not as it appears, as the number of those that are entering from Europe is less than half of that figure, 42% or 267,000. 45% of immigrants are citizens that come from outside the EU. So now, we have 300,000 people leaving the UK, but only 267,000 entering from the EU, which gives a net figure of -33,000! So how does 'Brexit' help there? Sure, the 267,000 EU immigrants will decrease, but so too would the number of emigrants. It seems obvious that the EU migration is not the Trojan horse it's being portrayed to be.



So when you go to vote on June 23, remember that leaving the EU is something that won't easily be reversed, so make sure you don't cast your ballot based on false pretences.

A rose by any other name...

There is unlikely to be many people around right now who haven't heard of ISIS. I mean, you'd have to have been living under a well-fortified and impenetrable rock to have not heard any news or witnessed any of their atrocities being committed by the group both in Syria and closer to home, with the recent attack in Paris renewing our awareness and condemnation. Yet, beyond the media's coverage of their atrocious acts, there remains a confusion: What are we supposed to call them?

Previously they had been known as ISIS/ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant) before our politicians applied pressure, and all of a sudden, out cropped the name "So-called Islamic State". Some even prefer we call them "Daesh", which we're told is apparently some sort of derogatory term for the group in Arabic. It is sometimes difficult to appreciate the sentiment behind why the groups name changes more frequently and confusingly than Puff Daddy/Puffy/P Diddy/Diddy/Sean Combs, or Prince/The Artist Formerly Known as Prince/.
Presumably, the thought is that by calling them Islamic State, we are somehow recognizing a legitimacy in their claims of a global caliphate, and in turn by refusing to call them what they wish to be known as and instead referring to them as "so-called IS" or "Daesh", we refuse to recognize any such legitimacy. But it seems that one thing is glaringly obvious yet somehow overlooked: It does not matter what the politically correct name to use in reference to them is, they are going to go on fighting regardless. And political correctness is absolutely the thing at play here.
Whether or not the general population or the media chooses to prefix "So-called" in front of "Islamic State" or not when referring to them, they're still going to fight on regardless. There are no discussions taking place among world leaders where there is a vacant seat waiting for the representatives of Islamic State: They're a terrorist organisation. Of that, practically the whole world is in agreement. So the issue over what we call them is a redundant one: Just by having the word "State" in their title doesn't somehow confer onto them any claim of legitimate statehood in the eyes of the world.
I would argue that rather than getting into debates over whether they're referred to as "so-called IS" or "Daesh" (as if using a term that is derogatory in a language we don't understand was in any way effective), perhaps we should instead all be calling them something overtly ridiculous. After all, imagine being bullied by someone called "Sally Nappyrash McFarts-A-Lot", at least such a stupid name might bring about a hint of a smirk every time you heard it out loud, and bullies hate being laughed at when they're trying to beat you up.