Quote:The way I see it is that mercy must always start from a position of justice.
And the way I see it, justice negates mercy. One cannot be both merciful and just.
Quote:Without justice, mercy means nothing.
To that extent, I agree.
Quote:So mercy is a layer on top of justice, or as Shakespeare so poetically put it, 'mercy seasons justice'.
I suppose that's another thing we can add to the list of what Shakespeare got wrong.
Quote:Justice starts with an eye for an eye, a life for a life.
lol, who says so? That isn't justice, that's savage brutality.
Quote:Mercy then seasons that justice and gives a new opportunity, especially to those who genuinely want to live a new life.
Moving from savagery to justice is hardly the same thing as tempering justice with mercy (at which point - I repeat - it is no longer justice). Don't get me wrong: I'll take mercy over justice any day, but I think the notion that an admixture of these two is impossible.
Quote:I think we can see that layering of mercy on top of justice in our penal justice systems, certainly here in the UK.
As someone who has been treated pretty shabbily by the UK penal 'justice' system, I respectfully disagree. What happened to me (and has happened to people I know personally) was neither merciful nor just.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
