I’ve seen two types of judges while covering courts. Which one bore judgment on the recent teachers’ strike?
One judge checks her ego outside the courtroom. She puts all her energy into absorbing affidavits, thoughtfully probing lawyers and clients, meticulously weighing evidence, and rendering judgments sensitively and creatively. If challenged in her authority, she politely explains she’s only trying to help resolve the conflict.
An experienced judge of this type is impressive to witness.
The other judge’s robes are puffed up with self-importance, and his overpowering sense of moral rectitude make him curt and dismissive of complex arguments. He shows disdain for anything particularly time-consuming, and delivers decisions packaged inside paternalistic lectures and salted with insults. If challenged, he menacingly warns about maintaining “respect for the court”.
During the strike, I for one saw too much of that second judge.
Though the government had simply invented a law declaring the teachers’ strike illegal, for example, many people instantly launched into insulting tirades. The next day “respect for the law” became the dominant public refrain, as if the huffy phrase had some universally-trumping moral rank, like a meta-political gavel hammering the final sentence.
“The law is the very foundation of a civil society,” our Premier proclaimed.
“The very day the union respects the court and returns to work, we will sit down and talk,” insisted Labour Minister Mike de Jong. Ad nauseam.
A lawyer’s op-ed, even while criticizing government, stated “rule of law is critical to a democratic society; without law, there would be anarchy.”
One letter-writer among many affirmed “respect for the law as the fundamental principle of democracy”.
And the presiding judge, stripping the now “outlaw” teachers of many of their basic rights to control their own money or even communicate with each other, parroted this view: “Each and every one of us derives the security and freedom which ...
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30
NOV
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