Re:Assange, the law of limitation, and the next eight days
by toyg on Tuesday August 11, 2015 @10:26AM
(#10041268)
> Justices either run for office as political public figures or are appointed by political public figures
Mon dieu, Baron de Montesquieu must be spinning in his grave! :)
One of the key principles of modern government is (or rather, should be) total independence of the judicial system from political pressure. In practice this is hard to achieve. In the US it turned into a "parallel democracy" with elected judges, who might not answer to regular politicians but are politicians themselves; in Europe it's usually a fundamentally-administrative career path, however in various countries it's more or less influenced by political winds (after all, an efficient Government or Parliament will want someone to actually enforce laws that get passed). Still, there is a clear ideal of purity and independence that original constituents were striving for (usually as a reaction to the arbitrary power of kings and popes), and our failings in reaching it now does not mean we will never reach it.
On your more general point, rather than "justice" I'd rather refer to "law enforcement". Yes, law enforcement is political: it enforces laws written by ruling interests to perpetuate such interests (be those moral, economic, of class or whatever). The degree and intensity of enforcement for any given rule is eminently political. However, "justice" itself is not necessarily the same thing.
At the end of the day, man is not perfect; a system will always be required to address this problem and its consequences. The existence of such a system is not just political but essential to society itself. Pre-political forms of society, where the tribe leader ruled uncontested by virtue of pure physical strength, likely still involved the administration of justice to a certain degree. In a way, the emergence of political structures themselves is an answer to the problem of obtaining justice (who defines what is just? How does he define it? How does he enforce it? and so on).
Mon dieu, Baron de Montesquieu must be spinning in his grave! :)
One of the key principles of modern government is (or rather, should be) total independence of the judicial system from political pressure. In practice this is hard to achieve. In the US it turned into a "parallel democracy" with elected judges, who might not answer to regular politicians but are politicians themselves; in Europe it's usually a fundamentally-administrative career path, however in various countries it's more or less influenced by political winds (after all, an efficient Government or Parliament will want someone to actually enforce laws that get passed). Still, there is a clear ideal of purity and independence that original constituents were striving for (usually as a reaction to the arbitrary power of kings and popes), and our failings in reaching it now does not mean we will never reach it.
On your more general point, rather than "justice" I'd rather refer to "law enforcement". Yes, law enforcement is political: it enforces laws written by ruling interests to perpetuate such interests (be those moral, economic, of class or whatever). The degree and intensity of enforcement for any given rule is eminently political. However, "justice" itself is not necessarily the same thing.
At the end of the day, man is not perfect; a system will always be required to address this problem and its consequences. The existence of such a system is not just political but essential to society itself. Pre-political forms of society, where the tribe leader ruled uncontested by virtue of pure physical strength, likely still involved the administration of justice to a certain degree. In a way, the emergence of political structures themselves is an answer to the problem of obtaining justice (who defines what is just? How does he define it? How does he enforce it? and so on).