The Value Of A Public Forum

This will be the third post in a row on the same thing, but probably the last.

In reading the comments to my first post on David Hicks, I got to thinking that beyond the basic problems the “trial” presents with coercion, torture, due process and the like, the biggest damage the process is doing is reducing confidence in the justice system.

Ron Davison at RWorld.blogspot.com talks about the necessity for transparency in government. The need is especially great in the courtroom. Just where does that word, court come from? “Court is an English word known since 1175, from Old French curt, from Latin cohors (‘enclosed yard,’ and by extension, perhaps associated with curia ‘sovereign's assembly’, those assembled in the yard; company, cohort, from com- ‘together’ + stem hort- related to hortus ‘garden, plot of ground’.” Wikipedia. Courts are places where people gather, places for public discourse, pronouncements, government communication with citizens. When people are brought before the court, it is by nature a public process. As it evolved, a person was thought be entitled to due process in public. The king’s soldiers could come get you in the dead of night, but the king had to present his case against you in daylight in front of your peers. The transparent process created a public acceptance that the process, and the result, was fair.

Now the Hicks case, in and of itself, is neither a testament to or a cause for damnation of plea bargaining. Plea bargaining is a reality in any justice system. But, the Guantanamo process under which Hicks was tried is a perfect example of how not to administer justice so as to maintain confidence in the justice system. No one but the participants know who did what to whom.

Did the government torture or coerce Hicks? We don’t and probably won’t know because the issue could not be brought up in his defense. Is Hicks a depraved terrorist that the government somehow just slapped on the wrist? The process, or lack of process will never let us answer that question with any degree of certainty. The list of questions that will not be answered because of the non-public forum is long.

In a society that chooses its leaders, it is essential that the governed be able to make informed decisions about those leaders’ conduct. We have public meetings, records and courtrooms. When leaders act to raise a curtain in front of citizens, there is to my mind a rebuttable presumption that they are up to no good. Add the amazingly light sentence Hicks got to the presumption and I am left with conclusion that the government has something to hid. I have less trust, make that almost no trust, in the government. That isn’t a good thing.

The king in Guantanamo is picking up people in the dead of night, keeping them, and us in the dark, and emerging into the “light,” announcing that justice has been served – we just aren’t going to talk about it. Most of us aren’t overly concerned with Hicks or his fellow detainees. Maybe it’s overly dramatic, but I remember the old poster:

First they came for the Socialists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left
to speak up for me.

Publicity and due process do their parts to ensure that you and I aren’t left alone in the middle of the night to face the king’s soldiers.