Unknown to anyone except a few younger men with a dark secret, the plaintiff is a pedophile. How appropriate is it to award him a huge sum of money in the name of justice?
One thing I have often pondered in relation to civil 'justice' is just exactly how deserving claimants are outside the scope of lawsuits. Consider this. A lawyer pleads the case of a man who claims to have been very hard done-by. He says he has suffered severe trauma due to a local council's negligence. In the name of justice he demands compensation. To deny him would be grossly unfair. But unknown to anyone except a few younger men with a dark secret, the plaintiff is a pedophile. How appropriate is it to award him a huge sum of money in the name of justice? If justice prevailed he would immediately hand his winnings over to his own victims, but that isn't going to happen.How many murderers, rapists, wife-bashers, drug pushers and the like have queued up in court for their shot at compo in the name of fairness and decency? Do lawyers seeking bounty for themselves give a hoot?What I am pointing the finger at here is not the recognition of an injustice in isolation, but rather the awarding of big money as a means of atonement for it. Payouts are generally at public expense one way or another.If the reason for making those payouts is that fairness demands them, surely we should require that claimants prove they have not themselves commited grave injustices which they have hidden and for which they are not going to make reparations.Dollar-based fairness either ought to be available for everyone or ought not to be available at all. Let claimants prove that they haven't committed equal or greater sins. If they can't do that, and it's impossible anyway, then big payouts ought to be largely dispensed with.A huge percent of the public has long believed that payouts are unnecessary and inappropriate. Lawyers and judges disagree, claiming they help to improve accountability. It hasn't escaped the public's notice that the grievance industry boom also helps to improve the legal fraternity's already considerable wealth. Dare I use the words "vested interest"?Justice has always been haphazard. Inequalities abound within the court system, yet we muddle along towards a better society. That is fair enough. We can expect nothing more than to take two steps forward and one step backward.But pot-of-gold justice easily becomes predatory, when in fact the whole purpose of the justice system is to protect us from predators. It becomes an argument for money rather than an argument for fairness in principle.To that extent, payout lawsuits seem to me to be one step forward and two steps backward.
