things that might have been otherwise

Heard a very interesting story at dinner the other night, about a High Court judge from Pakistan, who came to the UK to observe UK judges at work. It turned out that as the Pakistani judge observed two of his UK counterparts spending a day deliberating over one case, he creased up with laughter, explaining that in a typical day, he would hear around 50 cases, giving judgements in about 25 of them!

The story gets better- apparently an example of this judge’s brisk modus operandi involved him summoning government officials to court (some in handcuffs, threatened with contempt) in order to expedite the repayment of a widow’s missing pension. If true, I was quite impressed by the example of the widow, who’d struggled for nine years to receive her due, suddenly given justice literally overnight. It seemed a good example of justice standing up for the rights of the individual, against the slow-turning wheels of bureaucracy.

But as I thought about it more, I wondered at the summary powers of this judge. There was something almost regal about his ability to demand instant compliance from sheepish officials.

Is there a danger in dispensing justice too quickly? I suppose that one might argue that showing justice to be swift and effective has the benefit of discouraging people from vigilanteism. But in cases where a resolution can’t be found in a single day, does ‘swift justice’ risk stoking frustration by creating unrealistic expectations?

From my own experience of jury service, I saw the wheels of justice turn very slowly (albeit thoroughly). Perhaps the bottom line is that a plaintiff wants swift redress, but a defendant prefers an adequate chance to put their side of the story.

What do you think? Swift or slow?

Quakers, especially unprogrammed meetings, like to talk about how we strive to keep things simple, so we can get on with building a spiritual community and listening to what God has to say to us.

But we’re also very good at creating structure, process, and things to do.

It’s right and valuable that Quaker processes are built around wide participation. But I can’t help feeling that sometimes we have so much process going on that we end up reducing the space from which inspiration can grow.

So where does all the process come from?

I think the ‘DIY’ nature of our faith leads us to want to foster involvement and participation- we want people to find roles for themselves.

We also want to take great care to ensure ideas are tested thoroughly, so tend to appoint committees here, send minutes there, etc etc.

Unprogrammed and liberal Friends can end up using process as a kind of community ‘glue’- they replace orthodoxy with orthopraxis (an idea suggested by Ben Pink Dandelion)

Do we need all the process all the time?