Crisis In the Courts
By: Lorenzo Dee Belveal

      Law is the first imperative in structuring a functional society.

Rules are the only alternative to violence. The more - and the more equitably -
rules are applied, the more they will be respected, and the less the (frustrated)
citizenry will feel impelled to resort to force to personally accomplish through violence, what the law should (by suasion) do for all of us.

"Law abiding" citizens residing in a "nation of laws" is at once the most benign
and the most socially productive combination imaginable. But when law breaks
down or is perverted and misapplied by incompetent or venal practitioners -
whether before the bar or sitting on the bench - the victims of a non-functional
legal system, in their desperation, are said to "take the law into their own
hands". This is both incorrect and impossible of accomplishment.

The law is not a tool that fits in any individual hand. The law is a faith. The law
is a social compact, within which we agree to replace personal conflict with an
equitable process for structured adjustment of those conflicts. The law is a
benign social influence that is intended to replace swords, knives and guns in
the hands of the civil populace - as well as replacing the need for same.

But only if the law in evenly, righteously and consistently applied. When the law is twisted, adapted, deformed, debased and used as a device to serve the
needs of the privileged and influential, it becomes a goad against the common
people, and the inherent blessings of the law become diabolical incitements to
universal suspicion, jealousy, struggles for individual and class ascendency,
along with deeply stratified social distrust. Social chaos impends.

When otherwise law-abiding citizens feel impelled to take to the streets with
their grievances, the implication is unmistakable that more civilized channels of
redress are failing to meet the public need for institutionalized attention.

The statement that "all men are created equal" is a mockery without the law to
uphold, perpetuate and constantly refine the lofty vision. When even-handed
application of the law succumbs to license, political favoritism and special
interest, so does equality, opportunity and justice itself.

A bad law or an improperly applied law is infinitely worse than no law
whatever. A bad law, a mis-applied law, or an unenforced law tears at the
social fabric by destroying respect for all laws, and all courts, that bear the
crucial obligation to fairly and faithfully enforce the law for the common
protection and benefit of everyone.

Arrayed against these time-honored tests, our court system is failing - and in
failing, it is destroying the very basis of our nation. To deny the reality of this
tragedy is but to encourage and accellerate our national deterioration and our
consequent fall into social disarray.


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Guadalajara, Jalisco, MEXICO

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