Justice in the afterlife is no justice at all

Some years ago - in the days when I still had a TV set to watch - I was mindlessly flicking channels when I came across an interview (on CNN or NBC or some similar channel) with one of the jurors who acquitted O. J. Simpson of wilful homicide in 1995.

She was a middle-aged woman from the American Midwest somewhere, and instantly reminded me of many almost identical characters I had met on my own travels to that part of the world: sweet, smiley, bubbly, kind-hearted, probably a very good baker of cakes, and pretty handy when it comes to quoting the Bible in any circumstance you care to name.

But back to the interview. At one point she was asked point blank whether she had ever doubted the verdict reached by that jury. Was OJ really innocent? And did the possibility (some would say certainty) of a miscarriage of justice trouble her conscience in any way?

She paused before answering (and what follows is largely reconstructed from memory). "Yes," she said at length. "I do think we were wrong, and that OJ was guilty. BUT... it doesn't trouble my conscience all that much, because I am a Christian..." [spoken with great conviction] "..and therefore I know that OJ Simpson will not escape justice in the long term. There is a higher authority that will judge us all in the end, OJ Simpson included..."

I don't know about you, but I find that line of reasoning deeply disturbing - frightening, almost. I remember thinking at the time: well, that makes your job rather easy, doesn't it? No matter how badly you screw up - possibly with fatal consequences, as in the many times an innocent man may have been sent to the electric chair, or imprisoned for life, etc - there will always be "a higher authority" that will simply step in to clean up the mess made by his moron creations here on earth.

Well, sadly for the innocent person wrongly fried, or the guilty man allowed to walk, this Deus-Ex-Machina style of justice can only take place after our deaths... i.e., at a point when we are all already manifestly beyond the point where any injustice, of any kind, may be rectified in any meaningful way.

This makes of it a very unique form of 'justice' indeed. On one level it does absolutely nothing to atone for the injustice suffered (or committed) by the dead person being 'judged'; and on another it fails in any way to compensate the victim's family and friends who are still alive, and who rightly clamour for justice at a point when they can actually enjoy its benefits.

More importantly still: 'universal justice' translates into no justice at all, when viewed by the rest of society which looks to the law-courts (and NOT to some shadowy and entirely nebulous 'afterlife' that none of us actually understands or can even describe) for its own justice needs.

Indeed, take that juror's reasoning to its logical conclusion, and you may as well dismantle the entire justice system. For what purpose can judges, jurors and law-courts possibly serve... if all along there is "a higher authority" that can do a much better job of the whole 'justice' spiel to begin with?

But of course we all know the real reason for belief in 'universal justice'. It exists merely to assuage the conscience of the truly guilty parties among us: you know, the corrupt judges who accept bribes ... the stupid and sometimes prejudiced jurors, who allow themselves to be swayed by emotional appeals to deliver a plainly flawed verdict... the crooked policemen who look the other way when organized crime strikes terror in your neighbourhood... the politician who accepts a commission, etc.

These people all get to sleep much easier at night, because in their little fantasy worlds there is the equivalent of a Jolly Joker who simply pops up like a magical trump card at the end, righting all wrongs and imbuing even the grisliest and ghastliest crime with the equivalent of Grimm brothers fairy-tale 'happy ending'.

And apart from freeing those people from all feelings of guilt and remorse, this same 'afterlife' superstition also frees them to carry on committing as many crimes (or mistakes) as they please. Who cares? It will all balance out in the end... promise!

But not all of us think this way. Faced with this scenario, my reaction is probably indistinguishable from that of many millions of people worldwide who have likewise come round to rejecting belief in an afterlife altogether. It makes my blood boil. And not only for the obvious reason (injustice makes people angry, otherwise we wouldn't have 'justice systems' in the first place). It angers me because, as a non-believer, I can only place ENORMOUS emphasis on the importance of justice being done (and seen to be done) in the here and now.

Unlike the religious mindset (although to be fair I do know religious people who reason the same way) it is no consolation to us whatsoever, that the wrongs perpetrated in this world will be righted by (if I may borrow George Carlin's immortal words) "an invisible man in the sky". I like my injustices righted by people I can see, thank you very much... and ideally while I'm still around to enjoy the resulting justice.

So to hear Judge Lawrence Quintano argue in court that "I will appear before Almighty God before all of you, where I will be judged" - spoken, not as a judge, but as a witness testifying under oath, and using the above as a pretext to avoid answering a question under cross-examination - I was forcefully reminded of why I have come round to believing that the very last place you will find justice these days are the Maltese courts of law.

For even Quintano is right - and I for one do not believe that for a second - and he is judged by God the Father on the Day of Reckoning... well, that will take place at another time, in another dimension, and quite frankly it will have no bearing on the case in which the judge was actually testifying.

Yet not only did the presiding magistrate not tick him off (I shudder to think how I would have been treated, had I behaved the same way on the witness stand), but the case was deferred altogether... which also means that the pretext achieved its primary objective, and the question was not answered.

Even without this consideration, the fact remains that Quintano was performing to a narrative that has a long and depressing history of success in our legal system. We all know stories (in which a certain former chief justice features quite prominently) in which entire cases were decided on the basis of whether the plaintiff took his oath on the crucifix or not; or whether he or she impressed the judge with efforts to project a 'good Catholic image'.

And again, the truly guilty people - the ones who denied custody of children to people on the basis of their religious beliefs, or those who ruled against a person on a property case because he or she (the case I know involves a 'she') was having an affair - and was therefore a 'bad woman' - remain snug in the belief that the victims of their injustice will be 'rewarded' in another life.

This is not justice. It is actually just rubbish, and it persistently disturbs me that so few people in this country seem capable of telling difference.