In the Name of the Father is about innocent people convicted of
crimes and sentenced heavily; even when their innocence is known to the police
(the real guilty person confesses), there is a cover-up until it is exposed by a
dedicated lawyer.
The story is based on real-life happening, and in and of itself it's not that
spectacular. But it does serve as a reminder of how the so-called "system of
justice" can be twisted, perverted, and made into a travesty to suit certain
people's needs.
It is, in particular, a story of the British system of justice (or lack
thereof) as the lawyer (I believe) says: "This brings into question our entire
system of justice". And that it does. We have heard countless numbers of
incidents involving police brutality and injustice, but yet we turn a blind eye
for the most part because we rationalise by thinking the system does more good
than bad. But that's not an excuse for continuing with an imperfect system. In
fact, at the end of the movie, it says that none of the police involved in this
case were disciplined! That is completely ridiculous---law-makers and
law-enforcers are in no way beyond the law. But again, we know of several
instances (I have seen several instances personally) where law makers do
constantly break the law. I am quite sure a lot of people, at some point in
their lives, have been through experiences that made them think about the legal
system. I suppose it does depend on your lifestyle, but the point is that it
shouldn't! As long as you're innocent, you're innocent. You cannot be bullied
into submission (which happens during the movie).
You can't be accused by someone in uniform "You're a thief" without any
basis. This does happen. I've seen it happen, I have a lot of friends
who have experienced this, and it has happened to me personally. In fact, at the
Black Sabbath
concert I recently went to, I was stopped by some security guard even though
I was frisked at the entrance. He said: "Are you sure you're not carrying
anything? You came through that door pretty fast." I would argue it's
impossible for a two line queue to get past four to six people who were
doing the searching without being stopped. Why should the police guard assume
something different? Had he really seen me come through, he'd have noticed I had
been searched. How could he know I had come through "fast" if he didn't follow
my moments through the entrance. It's just the attitude of these people in power
which bothers me, and this is brought out by the movie. As the prosecution
prepares its case, it does find evidence that corroborates the defendants'
stories, but they choose to hide that fact from the defense. In general, I'd
argue strongly that a lot of law-people are more interested in winning cases and
obtaining convictions (in short, being "right") than finding out the
truth. Again, in the movie, when the prosecution wins the case
initially, you can see the law-makers getting great pleasure out of this. Why
should they? Because they won a case? Was that their motivation?
But why should this not be? Is it not human nature to want to be right all
the time? Most people who accomplish something usually are of the type that they
form an opinion about something and it takes a lot to shake that opinion. We see
this happen constantly, even in the scientific world where researchers push
their pet theories. Some people even pervert the facts (sometimes incidentally,
and sometimes intentionally) in order to achieve their goals. It is these sort
of people that we have in in the legal systems around the world. Some systems
are worse than others, but the basic problem is the same. So given this type of
people in our judicial and governmental, we are always going to have cases of
innocent people being persecuted. The system will be proportionally twisted to
the degree of corruption in a society.
So, our current system (Judge, Jury, Lawyers) isn't good enough to prevent
what I consider a significant percentage (purely based on experience) of
innocent people from being bludgeoned into submission. My personal philosophy is
to do away with any sort of system that gives so much power to a set of people
that the individual is virtually powerless. To take things to an extreme, I
believe in an anarchistic society where people can do what they want and people
can be their own judge and jury. This at first seems that it would encourage
more crime and not be worth it, but I do think the criminals commit crime
without a great deal of respect for the law (I suppose it follows
automatically). I think the system of justice does punish them, but I don't
think it really makes a big dent in reforming the criminal mind. I think if a
certain society were made anarchistic (this is idealism talking), then people
who would commit crime in present society would be more open about it, but the
rate of crime would not increase by any significant amount, especially in the
long run. But what we have here is an added enforcement of the "law". As I have
pointed out earlier, criminals would think twice about targets that hit back.
The more idealistic solution is to say that people when given the freedom won't
do anything to others that they wouldn't want done to them.
Personal philosophy aside, we need cases such as these to be more open. I
don't believe a cop's word should have more weight than the testimony of 3-4
witnesses. Clearly the jury system is flawed because in today's age it's hard to
believe that any jury would not be informed of the crime and form their own
opinions. Of course, the media doesn't help things much either. We have recently
seen at least one case (and perhaps another) where the person was judged
"guilty" by certain organisations even before it was proven in court. People who
serve on the Jury should be more rigourously chosen, based on their background
and beliefs. In particular, people who take courses in logic might help.
Seriously, in the movie, as people were being accused of certain crimes, it was
shown how ridiculous it was. Yet, the Jury, in the heat of the moment, was
easily swayed. A larger jury might help. This can be mediated by computers,
which I think should be used to store information about cases and such and this
information should be available for all.
Finally, one of the main reasons that these people were kept in prison even
though they were found innocent is because of a cover-up of the people in power.
Such cover-ups should be punished just as a common criminal would be (yes, we
saw this happen during the Iran-Contra affair). Such cover-ups should not be
allowed. The public should have access to this information and it should be done
in a complete manner. That is, there should not be a superficial layer of
information just for the "public", but rather any and all information should be
made free. What problems can this cause? Of course, the first issue that's
raised is the issue of national security. But I think this really has little
effect on most cases. I don't it mattered at all in this particular case, and in
general doesn't (pointing to the numerous innocent persecutions simply due to
age, appearances, etc.). Some might object that this is an invasion of the
convicted person's privacy. When you take away a person's freedom for a
crime---I don't see why privacy should be protected.
But all the latter solutions dance around the issue. It hides what happens
before cases come to court. There is always injustice as what determines a
person's actions at a particular time is influenced by various unrelated factors
such as personal arguments and problems. In fact, I've heard it said many times
that the world would be a better place if "men" weren't in charge simply because
it seems like they allow their hormones rule over their better judgement. I've
also heard remarks that people in power are sexually frustrated and thus they
end up acting the way they do. Perhaps this has some truth to it, but it doesn't
matter. People in power are prone to commit injustice, but it passes by
unnoticed for the most part since they do it under a thin veil.
The way such injustice can be eradicated is by demolishing the current
foundations of our existing systems that give power over other subjective
individuals and thus naturally creating a system where everyone is judged
equally and fairly (albeit from a subjective perspective).
State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it
tells lies too; and this lie crawls out of its mouth: ``I, the state, am the
people.'' That is a lie! It was creators who created peoples and hung a faith
and a love over them: thus they served life. --Nietzsche, Thus Spoke
Zarathustra
From www.ram.org
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