November 24, 2018 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Fair Trial
We saw last night the criminal justice
system of India, China and Canada and saw how diverse they are in several ways.
It also highlighted the point that an
overpopulated democracy with spare resources simply lacks the capability to
carry out the prosecution to its logical conclusion for factors very diverse.
The failure of the criminal judiciary
system as we saw in the case study of the state of Maharashtra conducted by an
independent NGO is lucidly and with great pithy explained by summation of Isaac
Asimov, my hero:
“Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Human dignity cannot survive it.
Convenience and decency cannot survive it.
As you put more and more people in the
world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears.
It doesn’t matter if someone dies.”
It also doesn’t matter if some accused gets
acquitted is what I can definitely add further.
Especially if he is a person who is either politically
powerful or has resources to bribe his way through to dilute the case enough
for the prosecution.
It is my observation that in spite of not
any conscious or willful desire by any particular individual, overpopulation by
default breeds contempt in-between humans especially against socio-economic
weaker segments.
Most modern democracies are signatories to
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted by the United
Nations General Assembly in 1948.
Article 10 of the Declaration explicitly
states the right to a fair trial of every individual even though there is no
universal understanding or definition that clarifies what exactly would be deemed
as an unfair trial.
The Universal Declaration enshrines the
presumption of innocence until proven guilty and the article 10 goes on to
state that:
“Everyone is entitled in full equality to a
fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the
determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against
him”.
Even though there is no exact definition of
fair trial, at a very bare minimum a fair trial must have the following
components:
(a) The right to be heard by a competent,
independent and impartial tribunal
(b) The right to a public hearing
(c) The right to be heard within a
reasonable time
(d) The right to Counsel (if not affording
the state shall provide the accused with a lawyer)
(e) The right to interpretation
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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