Simplifying the Law
SIMPLIFYING THE LAW NO ONE will dissent from Governor Roosevelt's second appeal for a simplification of legal procedure. Everyone has been approving similar utterances for many years, and Governor...
...But simplifying the legal machinery will not resolve all these kinds of justice into one single code...
...And it is one reason why in some cases justice is so costly...
...And it is not simply a question of "rich" and "poor...
...In Russia it makes some difference whether one is a Communist or a Socialist...
...Of course that is one reason why we have lawyers...
...And the commission's work will not be "a mere reclassification and recodification of our civil and criminal codes-splendid work is being done along these lines by the bar itself," but a simplifying of "the entire machinery of justice...
...But we wonder why he speaks of "a general and growing impression" that there are two kinds of justice, one for the rich, and one for the poor...
...So far as we are aware, no civilization has ever succeeded for long in giving any other impression of the sort of justice it provided...
...In China there is one kind of justice for the foreigner and another for the native...
...It will be recalled that last year he asked the Legislature for a commission of judges, lawyers and laymen to study the wh le question...
...If the law could be ideally simplified, there would be no need for lawyers, except in criminal cases, and there would be no need for wealth to insure simple justice...
...Surely it is as old as mankind...
...For we have so "confused our patchwork additions to our code and statutes as to make every legal process a matter of requiring many hours of study and research and the highe-st technical skill before it can be successfully undertaken...
...And in most western countries there is one kind of justice for those whose personal habits conform to the majority, and another for those whose habits are considered beyond the pale...
...Surely that impression is not growing, but fixed...
...In Italy, for instance, there is also a division of justice into Fascist and non-Fascist...
...Everyone has been approving similar utterances for many years, and Governor Roosevelt was assured of agreement before he started...
...His remarks are not simply another, and the most recent, endorsement of a popular argument because he happens to be in a position to do something about it, and has said that he will do something about it...
...There are more than two kinds of justice...
...We are glad that Governor Roosevelt does not forget the "crying need for making justice simple and inexpensive to obtain...
...A drug addict, for instance, will usually be dealt with more harshly than a glutton, although the charge against him has nothing to do with drugs...
...The Legislature proposed a commission of lawyers, which the Governor rejected...
...This year, he tells the alumni of Columbia Law School, he hopes to get the sort of commission he wants, with a preponderance of laymen, because "it is the laymen and not the legal profession who are bitterly complaining of the costliness and slowness of justice...
...It is the general intelligence that must be clarified...
...There is another for the yellow, and still another for the red...
...There is one kind for the agent of the law (particularly if he is identified with the prohibition forces) and another for the citizen...
...In some parts of the United States, there is one kind for the white man and another for the black...
Vol. 11 • November 1929 • No. 3
