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RICARDO BLUME
Newspaper articles
(This is the compilation of some articles published in the newspaper El Comercio of Lima Peru between 1981 and 1988)
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| Ricardo Blume |
RICARDO BLUME
Newspaper articles
(This is the compilation of some articles published in the newspaper El Comercio of Lima Peru between 1981 and 1988)
The just and the legal
the first disappointments that I remember as a child are very different in nature and importance. From discovering that there was no Santa Claus to the awful revelation that people die.
One of the biggest deceptions that I suffered as an adult, and which I still do not recover despite the years passed, I had when a lawyer friend of mine told me that just it is not the same thing that the legal thing.
I could not believe it. I had a trial (first and last of my life, I play wood) and when he informed me that there was a point where I was right but could not defend myself, I could not but say, but that's not fair!
It was then that my friend, a brilliant lawyer, took the trouble to explain to me that one thing was fair and the other legal. It was a blow. The breaking of an illusion.
Over the years and disappointments I have been able to verify a thousand times that my friend told the truth. However, the wound that it produced has not healed and it is reluctant to heal. These days (regardless of whether or not the legality of a measure adopted by the judiciary is approved (we are witnessing a clear confrontation between what is just and what is legal), what is fair is what is fixed for justice and reason. prescribed by law and according to it, justice is the virtue that is inclined to give each one what belongs to him, equity, what must be done according to law and reason, justice is something that is above We are an aspiration that we tend to.
The laws, on the other hand, are made by men. Tending to achieve justice, naturally.
the first disappointments that I remember as a child are very different in nature and importance. From discovering that there was no Santa Claus to the awful revelation that people die.
One of the biggest deceptions that I suffered as an adult, and which I still do not recover despite the years passed, I had when a lawyer friend of mine told me that just it is not the same thing that the legal thing.
I could not believe it. I had a trial (first and last of my life, I play wood) and when he informed me that there was a point where I was right but could not defend myself, I could not but say, but that's not fair!
It was then that my friend, a brilliant lawyer, took the trouble to explain to me that one thing was fair and the other legal. It was a blow. The breaking of an illusion.
Over the years and disappointments I have been able to verify a thousand times that my friend told the truth. However, the wound that it produced has not healed and it is reluctant to heal. These days (regardless of whether or not the legality of a measure adopted by the judiciary is approved (we are witnessing a clear confrontation between what is just and what is legal), what is fair is what is fixed for justice and reason. prescribed by law and according to it, justice is the virtue that is inclined to give each one what belongs to him, equity, what must be done according to law and reason, justice is something that is above We are an aspiration that we tend to.
The laws, on the other hand, are made by men. Tending to achieve justice, naturally.
But if the just is
right, the legal (by the mess of laws created by men) is full of shortcuts and
twists and turns where justice can slip.
As everyone can suppose, I am a layman when it comes to legality. That is what the lawyers, jurists, and even pettifoggers are for; all this is synonymous with lawyer.
As everyone can suppose, I am a layman when it comes to legality. That is what the lawyers, jurists, and even pettifoggers are for; all this is synonymous with lawyer.
As laymen therefore, ( ignorant, illiterate, unlearned
and incompetent) I allow myself to say that while I understand that legality
must be the sustenance and the path to justice, the just should never be
sacrificed for the legal.
I believe in the probity and rectitude of people more than in the attachment to legalism and formality. An honest and just judge is for me a more perfect and efficient institution than a whole courthouse full of legal officers and bureaucrats of justice.
I write many days before this note is published. I do not know if the matter that motivates this reflection will end or will have ended.
If justice or legality will have triumphed. But this is what worries me:
Is it legal for an offender sentenced to fifteen years in prison for a crime against humanity, such as illicit drug trafficking, to be released in such a short time?
Possibly. But it does not seem fair to me. It is not fair in itself. Nor is it fair in relation to other cases. The law must be the same for everyone, white’s people or high landers civilians and uniformed.
This is not the delicate issue that is presumed to be someone who is guilty but who cannot legally be proved. It is a proven and sentenced crime.
That the legal intricacies allow that sentence to be concealed is what worries. And what would prove, flagrantly, that one thing is just and the other legal. But that should not be the case. Jus means right. And right means straight. Something that does not admit zigzags, what goes directly.
When legality is opposed to justice, in a clamorous case like this, an injustice occurs within the law.
I believe that there is nothing that harms public morals more than allowing a fact of this nature. I understand that getting the right thing to coincide with the legal is not always possible. But towards that we must tend.
Let divergence be the exception, not the rule.
At least, an ignorant, unlettered, unlearned and incompetent in legal issues like me, is reluctant to accept that the just and legal can become opposite things.
Just as I refuse to believe that a kind of genocide of youth, like a narco-trafficker, can continue to belong with a military institution with impunity.
The author. March 13, 1986
with affection
I believe in the probity and rectitude of people more than in the attachment to legalism and formality. An honest and just judge is for me a more perfect and efficient institution than a whole courthouse full of legal officers and bureaucrats of justice.
I write many days before this note is published. I do not know if the matter that motivates this reflection will end or will have ended.
If justice or legality will have triumphed. But this is what worries me:
Is it legal for an offender sentenced to fifteen years in prison for a crime against humanity, such as illicit drug trafficking, to be released in such a short time?
Possibly. But it does not seem fair to me. It is not fair in itself. Nor is it fair in relation to other cases. The law must be the same for everyone, white’s people or high landers civilians and uniformed.
This is not the delicate issue that is presumed to be someone who is guilty but who cannot legally be proved. It is a proven and sentenced crime.
That the legal intricacies allow that sentence to be concealed is what worries. And what would prove, flagrantly, that one thing is just and the other legal. But that should not be the case. Jus means right. And right means straight. Something that does not admit zigzags, what goes directly.
When legality is opposed to justice, in a clamorous case like this, an injustice occurs within the law.
I believe that there is nothing that harms public morals more than allowing a fact of this nature. I understand that getting the right thing to coincide with the legal is not always possible. But towards that we must tend.
Let divergence be the exception, not the rule.
At least, an ignorant, unlettered, unlearned and incompetent in legal issues like me, is reluctant to accept that the just and legal can become opposite things.
Just as I refuse to believe that a kind of genocide of youth, like a narco-trafficker, can continue to belong with a military institution with impunity.
The author. March 13, 1986
with affection
Ruben
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