SENTINEL WATCH January 14, 2008 Issue

JUSTICE WITHOUT AN AGENDA

JILL AARON

IT'S A SYMBOL familiar to many—a blindfolded woman draped in classical robes holding scales in one hand. She is known as Justicia, modeled after the Roman goddess of justice. For centuries, artists have portrayed her as blind, symbolizing the ideal that justice should be impartial.

I've been thinking about this ideal of justice quite a bit recently. As a former lawyer, my heart went out to the hundreds of lawyers and others who were jailed by Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, in order to neutralize legal objections to his government. He also removed Supreme Court justices, replacing them with handpicked successors who have since validated his presidency.

Then, in a highly politicized case, a Sudanese court sentenced a British schoolteacher to jail for insulting Islam because she allowed her seven-year-old students to name a teddy bear "Mohammed." She was later pardoned by Sudan's president and released.