The Supreme Court building in New York sports a quote spread along its facade. Attributed to George Washington it states “The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government”. There are many other quips in similar vein that can be formed into a digest of civic education necessary to form a Havel-inspired backbone of society. “We are servants of the law so we may be free”, “everybody is equal in the eyes of the law” and “justice must not only be done but also seen to be done” are but a tiny sampler of a hypothetical dispenser of sayings related to the role of justice in forming a strong backbone of society.
The onset of relativism in Malta, poisoned as it was with strong doses of populism and twisting of truths in order to benefit whatever half of the population was being courted, has had a devastating effect on our concept of administration of justice and its dispensation. The institutional (constitutional) set up intended to be a fine machinery with which laws would be discussed, promulgated and implemented has been the main victim of the spread of the malaise of relativism and once the mother of all populist and relativist movements plonked itself in the seat of “power” the inevitable happened.
It began slowly. The “fairness” of justice was (rightly) made a subject of debate. Nothing wrong there, especially since society has a way of revising its concept of justice and mores on a regular basis. The problem begins when the proper channels for the revision of laws and finally the dispensation of justice are bypassed in the name of some relativist concept of fairness that operates plainly outside the codebook. There is no legal certainty, no legitimate expectation – simply an unpredictable machine churning out populist edicts as becomes the popular call of the moment. The erosion happens quick and fast by eradicating any concept of merit, of just deserts and introducing a volatile idea of “fairness” (at least perceived).
This is a society that will now reward failures (repeaters at University will still receive their stipend). This is a government that, without any legal foundation, decides to create a blanket amnesty to 1,500 persons who are blatantly accomplices in the crime of theft of public property. The example this sets is an abomination to any aspirations of a just society. The transparent reasoning behind it all – notwithstanding all the faffle from the respective Ministers and PM – is that most of these people would form part of the disgruntled who complained about the price of electricity. Those disgruntled had thrown their weight behind the current government – no wonder they suddenly find a reprieve whisked out of thin air.
Under this government though we have been told that if you consider a tax or a cost to be unfair then you are perfectly within your rights to try and avoid paying it. Committing a crime to do so is perfectly kosher – this is thegovernment that supposedly rewards Robin Hoods. There is no sense in all this other than the distortion of justice for political mileage.
“We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.” – Hunter S. Thompson.
