legal – Stop! Restart!

A Day in Court

Is our system of justice so divorced from reality it has become nothing more than a farce.

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.

I Want to Ride my Bicycle

The next thing I know, I was lying on the ground looking up at a lot of people looking down at me lying on the ground. This was obviously not a good thing.

For most kids, learning to ride a bicycle is a right of passage. I was no different. I had long outgrown my tricycle and I wanted a bike, a bike with two wheels – a real bike!

One day, to my complete surprise, my dad came home with a bicycle – it was for me. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t pretty. But it was mine! I was thrilled because I never thought I would ever have my own bike.

After lots of failed attempts, I finally got the hang of keeping balance as long as kept pedalling. Once I had mastered the art of coming to a stop without not falling off, my dad decided to take me for a bike ride. It was just him and me. Me and my dad! I was on top of the world. Off we went riding side by side.

After a while, we stopped at the side of the street and he told me to wait while he crossed the road to go into a shop. I think he was going to buy some cigarettes. I remember him telling me to wait, but after a while I was tired of waiting and so decided to cross the road.

I got hit by a car.

The next thing I know, I was lying on the ground looking up at a lot of people looking down at me lying on the ground. This was obviously not a good thing. So I did what seemed natural at the time – I decided to cry.

Somehow my dad managed to get me and both of our bikes back home where I ran into the house and told my mum I had been run over by a car. My dad corrected me and told my mum I got ‘hit’ by a car.

But this isn’t about riding a bike, or about the dangers of other vehicles. It’s not even about me ignoring my dad’s instructions. It’s about what happened next.

Here’s the interesting part.

A few days later, there was a knock at the door. It was the man who had been driving the car – the car I had ridden in front of. Out of concern, he had come by to see if I was alright. Dad invited him in and they chattered while my mum made a pot of tea.

Then my dad told me to tell the man that I was sorry for what I had done. Let that sink in for a moment! It had been my fault and therefore I had to apologise.

Today, we are warned from a legal perspective to never say sorry, citing that it can be construed as an admission of guilt. I have bumped into doorposts and instinctively said sorry – it’s what we do. Things like this are sewn into our very fibre. I’m reminded of a line from my favourite Star Trek series – ‘Star Trek Enterprise’ – “We can’t save humanity without holding on to what makes us human.”

In that moment I was taught that we are accountable for our actions. If we don’t learn this early enough in life, we would grow up believing we are can do whatever we want without consequence. I may apologise to the odd door post or two, but I’m not sorry if this if this offends anyone.

A Moral Dilemma

Life is simple. Only people make it complicated. The laws of nature and those laws devised by mankind are often in conflict.

I was only 15 – she was 19 – I didn’t care that she was older!
I had a teenage crush on a young lady named Christine Keeler.

Ms Keeler and her friend, Mandy Rice-Davies, were at the centre of a scandal that shocked a nation (Great Britain). The scandal eventually brought the then reigning Government to its knees.

But this isn’t about rehashing history. The details of this notorious event are well documented and are readily available online. See – The Profumo Affair.

British newspapers being what they are, were all over this story, covering it from every angle possible – and in the midst of all this was me, trying to make some sort of sense of everything I was reading in those papers.

I recall talking to my dad about it while we were working in the garden. We were digging up some potatoes if memory serves me correctly. As we talked, my dad saw that I was having trouble understanding the various aspects of the situation. This was when he said something that changed my life forever.

He said, “Son (he always called me son when he felt he needed to be profound), Son, there is often a big difference between what is morally right and what is legally right.”

This came as a mind-blowing shock because up until then, I thought there was only right and wrong! But suddenly, there were now two variations of what was right!

At that moment, my understanding of the world suddenly got turned upside down. Any thoughts of Christine were temporarily shelved as I focused on the implications introduced by this revelation.

After some deliberations, I asked my dad what I should do if I ever found myself in a position where I had to choose between the two. My dad said to always do what is morally right. He explained that laws are man-made and can change over time. He added that laws can also vary from place to place. But the same basic morality is inherent in every one of us – it’s who we are – it’s what we are.

I only wish he had explained this to me much earlier in life. It would have saved me a lot of bother even in those earlier years, especially while navigating my days at school. However, from that day forth, I have always leaned towards doing what is morally right.

In recent years, I have watched with deepening trepidation the widening gap between what is morally right and what we deem as being legally right. Not only that, but it seems that the further these two states drift apart, the more divided we all become. The Greek philosopher Aristotle is credited with proclaiming that nature abhors a vacuum. In the same sentiment, the vacuum created between these two states is quickly filled with the less savoury members of society who are ready, willing and eager to exploit the confusion.

Foot Notes:

Here is an iconic B&W photo of Ms Keeler sitting in an Arne Jacobsen chair, taken by photographer Lewis Morley.

Shortly after this picture was published in every British Newspaper – I signed up for a photography course at college and I’ve had a love of B&W photography ever since.