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.
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