Monday, January 18, 2010

The Truth about Justice

Besides the point that law almost pays my bills, I find the farces amusing, entertaining, etc. Take the Justitia allegory – Lady Justice with the blindfold, sword and scales. She is at every court and on every law text cover with space to fill and the perfect symbolism for us all – until we think it through.

Do you really want to trust a double-edged sword with a stereotypical emotionally imbalanced woman? What’s worse – she is as old as forever, making her menopausal, ‘naturally’ suspect to mood swings, fatigue, among other dreadful diseases, which do not affect the male folk.

Then again, she does not ‘shine her eye’. Why on earth would you trust the judgement of a blindfolded person whether male or female? The textbook response is impartiality but how impartial would you want a judge to be in the face of your ‘poor’ yacht-owning, Fifth Avenue condo living, borrower-client, whose inability to pay due to ‘the economic downturn’ is not appreciated by the lending banks but is bedevilled by annoying EFCC officials and bankers who do not know their place.
The scales are something else – everyone knows that substance and relevance matters over weight. What if Lady Justice’s arm sort of hurts at that time and the pain makes her tilt one to another? Obviously, suspending the scales all these years must have some effect on her muscles!

The toga – don’t get me started! That is so long that I worry about her freedom of movement. She would definitely trip over it.

Yeah, we try to make life easy and tell the truth – that is what lawyers do.

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