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Is Justice Truly Served Research Paper

Satisfactory Essays

Zack Waldeck
Mr. Maxwell
CLN4U
14 January 2016
Is justice truly served? One of the most well-known Greek philosophers, Plato had figured there were four virtues: courage, wisdom, temperance, and justice. As a society, we believe that justice is in place to preserve our beliefs, and to protect us from destruction. But is justice truly served in our world? Well, justice is difficult to define, as many societies have different points of view on justice. We’re going to take a look at three well-known genocides in our history: The Rwandan, Bosnian, and German genocide; and the trials that “served justice”. The genocide in Rwanda was truly a horrific experience for the citizens whom lived there, as well as the rest of the world who were praying …show more content…

Bringing the suspects to court was more difficult than intended, as many of the lawyers, judges and prosecutors were killed during the genocide. Many of the defendants were convicted without even having a chance to acquire a lawyer, as either their lawyer was killed or a lawyer would simply refuse to defend the client since they were afraid the public would fight back at them. At this point, many courts called “Gacaca” courts were put into play in 2005 as they processed almost two million cases until their closure in 2012. Although these courts were pumping out cases daily, they simply weren’t doing a great job investigating the cases which led to many unfair trials. Rwanda had a lack of safeguards which resulted in a high risk of unfair trials, as their judicial system was extremely weak at the time. An organization called “Lawyers without Borders” came into play to help genocide suspects, but the need for lawyers in Rwanda far outweighed what the organization could supply, which caused a slow process for each trial. Many of the participants in the courts either lied or remained silent which prolonged the process even further. In 1994, the ICTR

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