'Justice to be denied to no one' - that's what the latin phrase means. Lawyers had continued the tradition of the scribes of old (which the priests and ulamaks continue to this day) of mystifying everything in a cloak of a foreign language, preferably a dead language - be it Latin or Sanskrit or the not so dead language of Arabic for the ulamaks.
The sense of importance when grand sounding although incomprehensible words passed the lips of lawyers and the likes stroke their egos and by way of warped logic justify to themselves the fees they charge....
Back to the topic ... can we say that anyone who has a need to turn to the court will have access to it? Sadly reality may not meet the lofty aspirations we hoped for.
Anyone charged with a capital crime - meaning that the punishment for the crime is death - will be given a lawyer to act for him. This is the available legal aid. The problem with it is that it is not far reaching enough. It assume for one that being sentence to death is the ultimate punishment. Is being locked up in a small cell for the rest of your life a lesser punishment?
The hope of giving justice to all is idealistic, the reality of life is that justice can be denied at every turn - from the first policeman who called a suspect for questioning, to the money driven lawyer who took on the defence till finally to the judge who decide not to believe the suspect and send him to be hanged. This is such a huge topic that it is virtually inexhaustible. It is unfortunately one of my hobby horses and undoubtedly l will bore you with many postings on this.
To digress, how is a judge able to conclude that a person is lying just because he has heard this man giving evidence? You get lied to by people you had known for years without realising it, but a judge will suss up whether a witness is lying from a couple of hours of hearing him give evidence. Which is why in Islam, a judge is said to already have one foot in hell!! A heavy price indeed.
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A judge was annoyed to find that his car wouldn't start. He called a taxi, and soon one arrived at his house.
Climbing in, he told the driver to take him to the halls of justice. "Where are they," asked the driver.
"You mean to say that you don't know where the courthouse is?" asked the incredulous judge.
"The courthouse? Of course I know where that is." replied the driver. "But I thought you said you wanted to go to the 'halls of justice.'
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