When we consider
statutory law, we know that there may exist a tension between how a particular
law may be interpreted and what the makers of that law intended. At the
conclusion of a court case, the judge must make a judgement, taking all the
facts into account. Ideally, he or she will seek to act within both the letter
and the spirit of the law. We may get a sense of the potentiality for
the exercise of that spirit in Portia’s plea for clemency in
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice:
The Quality of Mercy
The quality of mercy
is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power
doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice.
When mercy seasons justice.
In day to day life,
we are constantly required to make decisions based on our own judgements. A
judgement may be an opinion that we have not expressed; but expressed or not,
it remains still: a judgement. We make judgements when we see others breaking
the law or when we feel that someone we know has not quite lived up to our
expectations. At the same time, we can be admonished for being too judgemental.
Nevertheless, it remains within our power, whether or not to forgive a slight
against us, or to make the decision to write off that debt that someone may owe
us.
On the question of
forgiveness, we have the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18: 23-35) or Jesus’
injunction that we should forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven
(Matthew 18:21-22). There are clear psychological and spiritual benefits in
practicing forgiveness, as we all know, but in the real world we also have to
use our common sense. Whilst we may understand the depth of compassion uttered
in that plea from the cross, ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they
do’ (Luke 23:34); we cannot, for
example, remain indifferent
to the murder of a child. We have courts of law for good
reason. In his Sermon on
the Mount, Jesus said:
Do not judge, or you
too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged,
and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Matthew 7:1-2
But this really
speaks to us of an attitude, a way in which we might relate to others and not
that we should suspend our faculty for critical thought. Paul, in his letter to
the Romans, wrote:
When Gentiles, who
do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though
not having the law, are a law to themselves. Romans 2:14
Implicit in this
statement appears to be the idea that at some level, within ourselves, a sense
of justice prevails. Without any legal or religious training, most of us know
that our actions have consequences
albeit, not always
foreseeable! Furthermore, because we are human, we naturally have the potential
to understand and to empathise with others, thus the golden rule of ‘do unto
others…’ is readily grasped and universally understood.
In law, there is the
concept of ‘natural justice’ and in the broadest sense we know that codes of
behaviour have evolved over time, from society to society, but this sense of
justice seems to be an innate part of who we are, it’s hard wired into our psyche. We
hear it from aggrieved squabbling children, that old refrain, ‘It’s not fair!’.
In the adult world there are campaigns for justice of one kind or another.
Plaintiffs appear in the news and in feature articles declaring that they ‘only
want justice’. The bereaved may seek justice at a murder trial, or at a
coroner’s court. And we are all familiar with the old ruling that, ‘Justice
should not only be done; it must also be seen to be done.’
However, there are
limits to the sanctions a court can impose or the compensation it can award.
Justice is not the same as revenge and human pain and loss are not so easily
set aside by the ruling of a court, no matter how just that ruling may be. The
fact is that some grievances cannot be resolved no matter what reparations may
be reasonably offered simply because the aggrieved cannot, or is unable to find
or accept closure. In the end, there is the world as we want it and the world
as it is. If one continues to reject ‘what is’ in favour of ‘what
isn’t’, then the suffering will continue.
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