In the final year of my graduation, during banter among our friends, I asked a law student Musarrat to define Justice.

‘You want to know about Justice,’ said he, ‘then it’d be most helpful to remember that there is no such thing as Justice.’ Certainly, I did not agree with him on this, for I had always been an advocate of humanism and moral uprightness.  Both these are inseparable from the concept of justice.  However, an incident soon followed that put a serious puzzle to my scanty understanding of the concept of Justice.

It was at the end of May 2001 when my friend (and Musarrat’s classmate) Altamash was murdered for holding atheistic beliefs at the hands of his younger brother, a religious fanatic, in his very own house. 

The sole witness to this murder (which was committed by stabbing Altamash in his back) was Altamash’s mother, a widow who had worked hard to bring up her children.  She was taken over by both grief and rage.
 

The latter overwhelmed her at first, for Altamash was the one she had invested in most of her energies, and she had her killer son arrested.  Her testimony in the court of law could get her son a death sentence. My first response was, alongside pain, that of rage.  I wanted the killer to die in punishment.  The lady too, I heard, seemed determined to avenge her dear son’s brutal murder. When the trial ran in the court, however, Altamash’s mother stepped back from her determination.  She did not testify against the killer and, later, the young man was proved as mentally ill!

A little imprisonment was all he suffered. It is not hard to see how frustrated one, who was on the deceased’s side and waiting for Justice to be done, could be at this.  My first feeling on hearing the lady’s changing her mind was that of disappointment. She seemed to do something she shouldn’t have done, something not fair or just.  It was at this time when a number of questions on the issue baffled my stance on the matter.  Was Altamash right in manifestly presenting himself an atheist while living in a den of fanatics? Was his brother really sane while stabbing him (for his mental condition had been dubious for quite some time)?  Was it right for a mother to hide the truth and betray her own blood?  Wasn’t it right for a mother to save her other son when she had just lost one beyond any hope of recovering? What was justice?  And most importantly, who was entitled to decide this?

As regards the first question, even my own atheistic beliefs failed to stop me from thinking my late friend as partly responsible for his own death.  Evoking someone’s wrath nearly meant suicide, especially when knowing the fanatic nature and mental condition of someone so close.

It seemed to prove Altamash either as a very poor judge of what people are up to, or too arrogant to heed someone’s grudge. Both these put the odds against him.  Contrary to this, his brother proves guilty for the way he killed Altamash (stabbing him secretly from behind while he was totally unaware of his presence).  Even his religion could not allow him to do so, for it teaches forgiving and providing at least one chance of repenting whatever blasphemy has been committed.  To complicate the issue, at the exact moment when Altamash was being stabbed, there could be no means to determine the exact mental condition of the killer.  Nothing could, or can, measure the dominant drive that led him to the brutal act.

The most difficult position was indeed that of the mother. I, and other friends of Altamash, expected her to make up for the loss we had all suffered, and that was by standing against the killer.  My beliefs and personal feelings of grief and anger all demanded of that woman to speak the truth.  It was ethical for her to speak it as demanded justice.  Was it ethical for to think this way, was a question that only later occurred to me.  Her initial determination to inflict punishment on her son wrested praise from me.

I thought she was acting as a loving mother and a responsible human being should act. It did not take me long to see the mother in her when she shrank from being an evidence in the case.  One of her sons was dead; the other’s life was in her hands. What was a mother to do?  Was she to act from her heart or from the demands of morals?  What in fact were those morals at such a moment?  Questions then began to multiply in my mind and I was caught in a crux that could not be resolved.  After an initial resentment against her decision to drop her witness, I finally saw the mother in her.  She had brought her sons up.  It was her decision. Justice was her word. She chose to save her son, betraying the feelings of Altamash’s friends but remaining loyal to her position of a mother. Perhaps there was still hope in her bosom to rescue her life against further undoing.  My final vote was in her favour.  To me, a mother is always just when caught in such a dilemma.  The court, however, can hardly be called just or unjust.

It so helplessly relies on evidence, sometimes just a single instance of it, that one can hardly consider it up to the magnanimous task. Its role is like that of a child too young to judge the correct word for a concept and who can only do so by receiving guidance from a guardian. In case no such guidance is given, one can hardly blame the child for choosing the wrong word, or praise him for choosing the right one. The best it can do is learning more.

Ernest Dempsey is a research associate in geology and a freelance writer. His first book of short stories 'The Biting Age' is being published by Audience World Inc. New York. Ernest is working on his first novel. He Lives in Pakistan.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites