Justice

Of course I looked "justice" up in the dictionary before I started to write this paper and I didn't find anything of interest except of course a common word in every definition, that being "fair". This implies that justice would have something to do with being fair. I thought that if one of the things the law and legal system are about is maintaining and promoting justice and a sense of "fairness", they might not be doing such a spiffy job. An eye for an eye is fair? No, that would be too easy, too black and white. I could cite several examples where I thought a judge's or jury's ruling was not fair, but I won't because frankly, we've all seen those. I actually believe in our legal system and I believe in justice. I believe in justice as an ideal that we strive for and that is what it means to me. The legal system, when looked at closer is not justice but instead - judgment. You can be punished when found guilty, in a number of ways, but who knows if they're "fair" punishments, it's all a matter of opinion. Is life in jail, say 25 years, going to be enough punishment for the parents charged with brutally murdering their daughter Farah Khan? Her life was brief, but whoever killed her also mutilated her body parts. The possibilities for her life were endless, she could have lived to the old age of 95. So is 25 years enough for her killers? They'll be able to walk free at the end of their term, and perhaps few will remember them then and what they did. Why is justice important then? Because although the legal system is not always right, it needs that lofty ideal of justice as something to strive for, something to hope gets accomplished, the hope for every victim of a crime of any nature. The seeking of justice is a tiring and long quest akin to the seeking of truth, for they are closely linked and without one there may not be the other. Without the understanding of what really happened in an event or place and time justice is not being sought out and can't be dealt to those that need it. We all have felt wronged, at one time or another, in one form or another and I feel that is why we all have a common interest in seeking justice. When we see the unfortunate stories of others, people who have had murder or assault, petty theft or vandalism, committed against them or the ones they love, we hope that our idea of justice is served. We hope that the people who commit