Justice means fairness yet it’s also a contradiction because fairness doesn’t always mean justice, and justice doesn’t always mean fairness. Confusing? Agreed! When you look at the world and the different countries, they all have their justice systems in place, some crimes in some places might be light imprisonment yet in other countries those same punishments you get the death penalty. Each justice system has a different justice scale as well, meaning the evidence needed for them is different as well. Even within those set systems which are supposed to create fairness and balance people fall through the cracks and get away with their bad deeds, it usually happens when the system is rigged against people who can’t afford expensive lawyers and legal teams.
According to a recent study done by The University of Exeter’s law school which is based in the UK revealed that out of ten miscarriages of justice four of them have involved unreliable witness testimonies meaning that the people testifying might have some issues regarding their character or what they might have witnessed. Another stat shows that one in four involves a false or more significantly an unreliable confession, this study was done according to a new database of information regarding the convictions that were overturned in the United Kingdom from the 1970s. This is just one study out of the many being conducted in the world involving miscarriages of justice
A scandal of particular involves a man named Hyman Kazan who has been part of the legal system for quite a while. His character is tortured by the present and the past but more so he is a character that is simply fed up and tired of the justice legal system which lets victims down while giving an easy passage to criminals to walk scot-free. In one of the first pages of the book, it is described how he is dealing with the pain of not bringing justice to a rape victim who was attacked by a person of color who was wielding a knife. The man was released and let go even with overwhelming conviction simply because the evidence wasn’t sufficient for the judge, more specifically the victim couldn’t identify how she was penetrated because she was nervous and ridden with anxiety.
There are many real-life events where perpetrators of a crime have been let go because of loopholes within the justice system. As the old saying goes, justice is blind but I would go as far as to say that justice is not only blind but deaf, mute and body less. Maybe one-day true justice can be achieved but as of now it is more based on hope rather than actual logical thinking.
