Human responsibility for the judicial supervision of social behaviour begins in Bible history in God's declaration to humanity after the Great Flood.

statement in verse 6 above is a phonetic triple-rythmn-structure (in contrast to its surrounding text) which reflects its pre-literary antiquity – that is, its structure was a memory-aid from long before Genesis was written, from before the art of writing had developed. From the earliest time then, this summary-form encapsulates human responsibility for justice and its basis, in the unique relationship to its Creator that the human race constitutionally carries as His representative – as in His 'image'.

In contrast to the pre-Flood state of humanity (in which Cain and Lamech's punishment was in God's hands), this statement declares humanity to now be directly responsible for the administration of justice. This shedding-of-blood statement (as the most serious of crimes) subsumes under it all other crimes.

Humanity's unique constitutional design among all biological life as God's direct representative, ambassador, surrogate, toward all earth-life (in God's 'image' to represent Him, Gen.1:26-28), makes killing a human being (in contrast to killing any other form of life) so serious that it requires the perpetrator's own life be forfeited, thereby referring his/her existence back to God, the originator of humanity's 'breath of life' consciousness (Gen.2:7).

The context of this command of judicial-responsibility (Gen.9:2-7) is the licence/authorization to use any life form for food (except its blood) in order to grow and spread the human family.  Thus killing animals for food, made from the same soil as humanity, with their many characteristics common with human beings, needed a strong and sharp dividing line to be drawn against killing human beings. It is within this perspective that the beginning of human responsibility for penal justice is now presented in the above declaration in Genesis.

Gandhi's well known quote – 'eye for an eye would blind the world' – is typical of the gross misunderstanding and ignorant twisting of the Bible's teaching on criminal punishment. It is not the same as victim qisãs (retribution) under Islam's Shari´ah law.

God's original statement in this quote is –

However, its context could not make its meaning more plain!

statement is introduced by the case of two men fighting who accidentally injure a pregnant bystander causing a miscarriage. The principle of equivalency is then stated in the above scripture and immediately, in the very next verse, illustrated by the practical example of a slave receiving his freedom because his owner had caused the loss of an eye (Ex.21:26).

The slave-owner did not have his own eye removed because he had caused the loss of an eye (as in qisãs the victim could require). Social equivalency is simply applied! How hard is that for Gandhi and other critics to understand?

in the USA it has been suggested that 'eye for an eye' means that capital punishment must thereby be restricted to the crime of murder. This is also and no less a perversion of the equivalency principle, for this principle addresses value and not method. This perversion also implies that there is no crime worse than murder, which of course is not what the Bible says.

The issue of justice from Sinai is that the scales of justice between crime and its punishment must balance!

Crime and punishment must balance each other. That is it! It's the reason why the balance scale became the symbol of justice.

Justice is not a balance between the rights of the victim and the rights of the offender, as some officers in the Canadian judicial system currently believe. True justice balances crime and its punishment, and only crime and its punishment!

An examination of more Sinai Law simply continues to illustrate the same principle, a principle that has long been accepted by the courts (if not always implemented) of every truly civilized nation.

it has become acceptable within judicial circles to match the sentence for a crime to the individual criminal rather than the crime alone. In other words, an elderly person receives as shorter sentence than a younger person for exactly the same crime. This violates the Biblical principle of justice and confuses justice with mercy which are not compatible and only reconcile in Jesus Christ.

common to think that a prison sentence somehow automatically fulfils this equivalency principle. This is not necessarily so!

Author Theodore Dalrymple writes in his book “Our Culture, What’s Left of It,” on the common debt-to-society concept which has so influenced much modern thinking:

Sentencing and Impartiality

In this case cited above, of the woman who miscarries as a result of accidental injury by two men fighting (Ex.21), the prescribed method for the carrying out of sentence is very interesting.

In the historical context of Israel's culture at the time, although it is the husband of the injured woman who must give input as to the sentence, it is the judges who must then determine the manner in which sentence is carried out (in this case a fine).

This input from the husband, before sentencing, reminds us of what is often forgotten in our courts today. Justice is not owned by the relevant authorities responsible for its administration!

Justice really belongs only to the victim/s of the injustice. The necessary authorities (for providing legislation, policing, judicial implementation, and penal practice) are actually acting on behalf of the victim's interest (not the state) to ensure full, fair, and proper administration of justice.

Although it is not often the practice, the victim of a crime ought always to have the right, after trial and before sentencing, to address the court concerning the nature of the injury suffered and the implications of such injury for the victim. To deny this is to not understand the very basics of justice as it is presented in the Word of God.

Encouragingly, for the first time in the history of international criminal justice, victims have the possibility under the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (boycotted by the USA, Israel, and others) to present their views and observations before the World Court.

Unfortunately, victims are too often treated merely as witnesses, and their ownership of justice for their injury is violated without the authorities even realizing this. Assertion of this right may even raise justifiable fears of vigilantism and warnings to not take the law into one's own hands. But it is only in the hands of the court and its officers by proxy on behalf and for the sake of the injured party.

The purpose of justice in each individual case is redress to the victim – not the rehabilitation of the offender. As worthy a motive as rehabilitation of the guilty may be, that is not justice and it lies beyond the competence of the court, any court, even God's Court.

Rehabilitation is restoration and a work of mercy. Mercy and justice conflict by their intrinsic character.

Mercy means one does not receive what one deserves. Justice means one gets exactly what one deserves! The two conflict directly. In Christian terms, this conflict is what happened on the Cross of Christ in which justice was satisfied by the punishment of the innocent on behalf of the guilty. This reconciliation does not apply to the behaviour of human courts – ever!

Justice is owned by victims and potential victims, on whose behalf the court acts. The Bible's 'neighbour-love' command requires that each person treat the injured party as seriously as if it were their own injury.

this reason, the beauty of this Bible illustration (Ex.21:22) is given to us to bring reconciliation between –

this manner then, the principle of equivalency between crime and its punishment is preserved.

Yet sadly, the modern Human Rights ideology, in Canada for instance, appears to have sometimes changed the symbolic Balance-Scale in the hand of Justice from meaning a balance between crime and its punishment – to being a balance between "the rights of victims and offenders"*, a subtle shift/perversion which appears in judicial practice to obscure the justice of full redress owed to every victim of a crime.

apart from the moral character of God's nature, any object that is used or abused in a crime; any person who participates in or is victimized by a crime; any relationship of any kind that is violated; only occurs by misappropriation and abuse of the Creator's creation.

responsibility of any judicial system is more than to evaluate accusations of wrong doing and to pass sentence based upon the evidences presented.

As part of a legislative and enforcement framework in any society, the responsibility of the judiciary is also to protect the innocent, the general public, as much as it is ever responsible to punish the guilty. Therefore beyond issues of crime and its punishment –

who care, and for those who do not but are employed to do so –

it must always be remembered that the three essential elements in crime prevention, to diligently aim at, are –

Beyond political assurances, it is these three that help build public confidence and hence public cooperation with law enforcement agencies. WikiLeaks cables showing conversations between U.S. and Mexican authorities reveal "prosecution rates for organized crime-related offenses are dismal; 2% of those detained are brought" to court.

Governments have initiated military conflict in foreign states based on evidence illegally obtained and claimed a 'just war' vindication of their actions. Yet, when the matter is one of public welfare or safety, courts have often dismissed valid evidence of guilt simply because it was not legally obtained. This hypocrisy actually makes justice a technical pretence. It would be wiser to separate any illegal act committed in evidence procurement from the truth-factor in the evidence itself.

Recently in Canada, a trans-national illegal drug smuggler was freed of all charges, although found in possession of his illegal cargo, simply because the search of his vehicle, which provided the evidence against him, was based only on a suspicion of the arresting officer.

This system of protecting the guilty by the legal technicalities of evidence-procurement defeats the very purpose of law enforcement and the existence of the judiciary.

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  Statute of Limitations

This legislation carries the inherent danger of rewarding dishonesty if the crime escapes detection for long enough. No statutory act of any country or community can ever undo or lessen the responsibility for justice of every community toward the Creator, the Supreme Judge, concerning the treatment of anyone. The responsibility remains, regardless! Culpability does not diminish with the passage of time.

The analogy of 'what you sow that shall you also reap' applies to communities as much as to any individual. Therefore, anyone who cares at all about the future of their community will be actively concerned about unresolved justice issues in their community – for the sake of their own children's future.

While it is necessary to protect the heads of state in office from frivolous law suites being used as a political tool against them, history has demonstrated that criminal immunity of leaders has not served public welfare.

For 300 years (from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 until the Nuremberg Nazi war trials) heads of state were regarded as legally immune from criminal prosecution for their crimes, no matter how terrible their crimes may have been. For instance, the United States government insisted on this legal immunity for the German Kaiser at the end of World War I, in spite of Britain's insistence that his unprovoked invasion of Belgium and unrestrained use of submarine warfare against commercial shipping deserved punishment.

Also then: Serbia's Milošević (unfortunately deceased) regarding the Bosnians; Iraq's Saddam Hussein (executed) regarding the Kurds; Liberia's Charles Taylor regarding Sierra Leone; and others who will certainly follow concerning Darfur, Zimbabwe, etc, must be seen to be held accountable for their actions, for public justice to enjoy the confidence of the public it is intended to serve.

the political motivation for the disregard of justice is economic in international trade, or national safety in Cold War 'balance of power' situations (such as tolerating the vicious Khmer Rouge¹ criminal rule in Cambodia), self-interest² has been consistently counted higher than righteousness; and self-preservation valued higher than justice: so national-safety still continues then to turn a blind eye to foreign atrocities. This is as evil nationally today as it is ever evil personally, and equally accountable accordingly.

God's morality does not change, and all will personally face Him, regardless of their belief-system, as accountable according to His morality and no less, for which humanity was originally morally designed (hence its awareness of guilt). Ignorance may mitigate this judgment, but nothing changes the standard of that judgment!

sponsored vigilantism by its military or security agencies, such as in the extra-judicial killings carried out in foreign countries in the past by Russia, Israel, and the USA, is no more moral than individual vigilantism; and modern history has also shown it to be no less subject to errors of mistaken identity! The International Criminal Court is available for those countries that carry a real respect for justice in more than window-dressing compliance.

All justice requires sentencing-impartiality (3 above) and therefore neither the prosecuting nor the arresting agency must ever be allowed to be the agency applying justice to the criminal.

surely applies even if the accused person has publicly confessed complicity in the crimes, such as Osama bin-Laden.

The existence of a separate judicial system, such as in the USA, which falls outside the ambit of the protection of human rights enshrined in a national constitition violates the essential impartiality of justice.

The recently signed Defense Authorization Act which allows the US military to detain its own citizens indefinitely without trial demonstrates this endemic injustice in the very existence of separate judicial systems within the same country which disallow equal application of the constitution.

In 1984, retired Canadian Provincial Judge Les Bewley wrote an essay The Breakdown of the Criminal Justice System in Canada* which contains the following insightful comment –

If a considered judicial sentence is able to be reduced by any factor that is not a mitigating factor relative to the criminal sentence itself, it is an abuse of justice and a violation of victims rights without redress for the victim.

To deny liberty to anyone indefinitely is a violation of the fundamental principle of justice. The fact that evidence is still being gathered is not a valid reason for detention. Only public safety or flight-risk are issues to be considered, and even then concerning granting bail, it is never an issue of innocent-until-proven-guilty for a bail hearing is not a trial. If flight risk is not a factor, it is only an issue of probable risk to public welfare!

Some countries, such as Canada, allow the issuing of security certificates for indefinite detention without trial by the authorities when it appears to be in the national interest. This is unjust, as also the indefinite detention of immigrants/non-citizens authorized under America's Patriot Act of 2001.

Alleged evidence against any accused must be testable before a impartial court of justice.

Concurrent sentences pay lip-service to justice and they devalue the victim. Where mitigating circumstances apply they must affect the sentence itself and not effectively nullify a sentence by making it concurrent with another; that is, effectively non-existent as far as the guilty person is concerned.

Judicial technicalities that demean effective justice for individual crimes are an offence before God.

The common practice by prosecutorial services to trade lighter sentences for the sake of cooperation by the accused, and so save them work or enable a successful prosecution, too often leads to inequity in sentencing and violates the principle that justice needs to be seen to be done. When a judge imposes a plea-bargained sentence, it constitutes an avoidance of the duty to conduct a public hearing and decide, alone, without the contrivances of counsel, a sentence that squares with the facts.

Retired Judge of Canada's Vancouver Criminal Division of the Provincial Court of British Columbia, Justice Wallace Craig, comments –

The confidence of the public requires visible and equitable justice, in order to retain public cooperation and to avoid fuelling nascent vigilantism out of sympathy for the victim of the crime.

To this violation of justice should also be added the shameful injustice to victims of prisoner-releases because of prison overcrowding or because of the cost of imprisonment.

These actions by authorities add to the increasing collapse of public confidence in judicial process as providing justice for victims. The ultimate end of the loss of public confidence is the rise of vigilantism, with its horrific effects such as when a pediatrician in the UK was attacked by a community which did not know how to spell 'pedophile'.

original mandate given by the Creator for the death penalty was within the context of the unique and incomparable value of human life (as made to represent the Creator) in contrast to all other animate life in authorising meat-eating. The succeeding cultural decline in the valuing of human life and the commendable development of respect for the environment with its variety of animate forms has falsely made the death penalty to seem barbarous and unethical.

"You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it. Therefore do not defile the land that you will inhabit, in which I live, for I the Lord live among the Israelites."

      Now, a little wisdom from humanity's past: