This was both interesting and disturbing.
I arrived early and sat patiently in court watching with passive interest the various traffic offence cases being processed. I had been subpoenaed as a witness.
One case caught my attention.
An older man was up before the court. He seemed to have limited English. Beside him stood, whom I assumed, was a court-appointed official, supposedly to help him understand and or translate what was being said. The Magistrate, the official and the prosecutor were bantering back and forth and suddenly the proceeding came to a stop. At that point, the old man turned to walk down the centre aisle. There was no reason for me to become interested in this particular case until the old man was greeted by some friends and family who had been sitting close to where I was seated. One of his family asked him, “Did you win?”
To this day I am haunted by his answer. He said, “I don’t know!”
How can this charade – this so-called system of justice – leave this old man not knowing or even understanding the verdict?
Is this system so divorced from reality it has just become nothing more than a playground on which an out-of-touch profession preys on the misfortunes of others to perpetuate its existence?
Like that old man in court – I don’t know.
© Copyright 2023 – MAC
Stop! Restart! 
I experienced the very same situation in traffic court many years ago. I was the one who explained to a man with limited English that our cases had been dismissed because the police officer hadn’t shown up in court. He was perplexed but happy that he didn’t have to pay the fine.
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