The phenomenon of injustice became a state of opinion and a general perception in Moldovan society. The danger is that this can turn into a mentality to which the people will get used, said the head of the public association Center of Initiatives and Public Authorities Monitoring, lawyer Ion Dron. “This is the biggest danger to which we are exposed as these discussions centering on injustice seem to become a kind of subject of public debates with different characteristics and large in scale in parts. This is very worrisome. We should speak with concern or the existing phenomenon will become a mentality,” Ion Dron stated in an interview for IPN.
According to him, injustice, especially in the Republic of Moldova, is no longer related to laws, to the system, to behavior or punishment. Injustice became a state of opinion and the way in which this opinion develops in the society’s mentality should worry the Republic of Moldova. “I will not venture to give a definition starting from a philosophic or moral conception. I will formulate a short definition, starting from the philosophical content of this word. Injustice is ultimately the antonym of justice. What is actually justice? I do not want to speak in a philosophical or moral context. I will speak in a strictly academic context. I have an own definition: justice is the law applied based on evidence. Consequently, when we do not have the law applied or it is applied outside or without evidence, we witness injustice,” explained Ion Dron.
The head of the Center of Initiatives and Public Authorities Monitoring said it is hard to answer the question where injustice drives from, but in his professional experience, serving as a lawyer since 1989, while in 1991 as a judge, during 30 years he caught the system in different phases. The worst phase for the Moldovan justice is the one we have experienced during the past few years. “Consequently, when you ask me about roots, I try to look for them in the period since 1989 as, starting with that year, when I was lucky to enter the system, things had been different during ten years. Not because I was present in the system, but you can look at opinion polls. Confidence in justice was at another level in 1996. In the 1990s, which were difficult even in terms of remuneration for lawyers, the people didn’t speak so often about corruption in justice as they speak now as about something normal. In the 1990s, the judges hadn’t received the salary for half a year, but polls were different. The citizens had trust in justice,” stated Ion Dron.
The lawyer noted that the moral models and benchmarks were abounded meanwhile in parts. ”In other words, when leaving a system in this period of transition, we renounce the set of values in which we were brought up and educated and grow in a system without values at all. We have a generation of prosecutors, a generation of judges who do not follow models in the system in which they work. When I started my career of judge, I had professional, moral benchmarks. The young generation that starts work today does not seem to have such standards. Consequently, injustice starts from the lack of morality at all the levels of society. Injustice has two facets. The one who comes and gives the envelope with bribe in the legal system is the citizen without roots, without moral standards,” explained the lawyer.
According to him, at first sight the one who experienced an act of injustice, either on the part of a judge or a prosecutor, or of a public authority suffers because of injustice. But the one who believes that he “benefitted” from an act that, as he considers, advantaged him in relation to the opponent or someone else also suffers. Everyone ultimately suffers from injustice, even those who, owing to the envelope, managed to obtain a favorable act of justice, as they believe.
“When a company, for example, is punished unjustly by a court decision, it recovers the damage at the expense of the one who believes that he won. The company either provides products of a poor quality at higher prices or simply raises prices in order to cover the incurred costs. It is a vicious circle,” noted Ion Dron.
“We in parts live according to a social Darwinism belief – the one who is stronger survives. But this is the road to abyss, to nowhere.”
The interview entitled “How much injustice is there in the Republic of Moldova at present? What are the roots, forms of injustice and solutions for combating it?” was conducted as part of IPN’s project “Injustice revealed through multimedia”.
