Has justice been done?
Giovanni Birindelli
Some people claim that the execution of Bin Laden (if it was an execution) was the only way to deal with him. Other people, on the other hand, claim that it is a missed opportunity to show the world that in the West the rule of law prevails over human passions and arbitrary political power. Vittorio Zucconi, an Italian journalist, lists eight reasons why in his opinion there was no alternative to executing Bin Laden. All of these reasons are essentially practical. Some of them are debatable (e.g. he claims that, in order to negotiate Bin Laden’s release during the trial, the terrorists would have committed continued and atrocious killings: but are we sure that a priori giving up justice is a good choice in the long run? Where is the limit set? And by whom? And by the way, are we sure that the terrorist reaction this alleged execution will provoke will be less heavy?); other reasons seem to be serious (e.g. he asks whether the testimonies extracted by means of torture could be admissible in a fair trial); most of them, however, do not: for example, Mr. Zucconi assumes that Obama’s decision, because it certainly was thought through, was the right decision (!?!); or he claims that there would have not been a place to try him because his alleged crimes were committed in different countries (but is not there an international court in Aja, Netherlands, where for example Milosevic had to stand trial for crimes against humanity that he committed in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo? Were not the Nazis tried in Nuremberg?). I am not a military strategist nor a expert on terrorism, and obviously I do not have access to the information the Obama administration has access to. In other words, I do not know whether in this case there were practical reasons that made the alleged execution of Bin Laden unavoidable. However I do believe that in any case it was not an act of justice; that it is not true that «justice has been done» as Mr. Obama stated, because, by the same standards Mr. Obama claims to respect, justice requires that an individual cannot be convicted without a fair trial. The alleged execution of Bin Laden was instead a failure of justice. Now, it may be the case that it was an unavoidable failure of justice: it may be the case that there exist extraordinary reasons that in these particular circumstances made this violation of abstract principles of justice inevitable. But inevitability does not make failure of justice an act of justice. I personally do not completely and a priori rule out the possibility that there could be extraordinary situations where the arbitrary violation of abstract principles of justice by political power is inevitable, but I do rule out the possibility that where there is the rule of law political power can arbitrarily violate abstract principles of justice (i.e. the law) 1) without stating explicitly why it had no other possible choice; 2) without this statement being independently evaluated; and 3) without being externally forced to reduce this violation as much as possible. I will illustrate this point with another example which is different but which, on an abstract level, is only apparently so. In extraordinary and individual cases of “severe privation” (whose definition goes beyond the scope of this article) I do not a priori rule out the possibility of an enforced redistribution of resources. However, I consider such redistribution to be a failure of justice, a violation of abstract principles of justice (namely the one of private property and the one of equality before the law: both are violated for instance by progressive taxation), not an act of justice. Even though it is unjust, I believe that in extreme cases such violation may be admissible but only 1) if it is explicitly stated that these extraordinary situations of severe privation could not possibly be dealt with in any other legitimate way; 2) if these statements are independently evaluated; 3) if the government’s arbitrary power to violate these abstract principles of justice is reduced as much as possible. For example, with reference to this last point, in these situations the government should not be allowed to redistribute unless some conditions are met such as, for example: a) the government’s arbitrary political power to allocate resources is limited by an assembly which does not have any power at all on matters of allocation of resources but is concerned only with abstract principles of justice; b) such redistribution happens outside the free market, not inside of it; c) there is already a situation of minimal state; and others. My point is that arbitrary political power is not necessarily incompatible with a free society, whereas unlimited political power is necessarily incompatible with it; and that so far the killing of Bin Laden appears to be a (unfortunately non-isolated) expression of unlimited political power. Aldo Cazzullo, another Italian journalist, stated that the killing of Bin Laden was a missed opportunity to show the world (and the terrorists) that the West is strong, that here the rule of law prevails over human passions and arbitrary political power. If today, in the West, the rule of law did usually prevail over human passions and arbitrary political power, I would agree with him. However, I believe that in modern times this is not the case; that arbitrary political power is taking more and more the place of the law as well as its name; that the modern state is more and more orientated towards reaching arbitrary and particular goals rather than towards defending abstract principles of justice wherever possible. In a nutshell, I believe that in modern times human passions (tribal instincts, as someone effectively called them) and arbitrary political power are less and less limited (by the law, that is by abstract principles of justice); that the law, more and more wolfed down in the inside by bureaucratic and particular measures as well as by tribal instincts, is now reduced to mere appearance, like a forest that has been progressively covered with concrete except the most peripheral line of trees. As Hayek said, «(in modern times) law, which in the earlier sense of nomos was meant to be a barrier to all power, becomes instead an instrument for the use of power». In my opinion, the alleged execution of Bin Laden would imply a rather little missed opportunity, if any. > Share:
|
