This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »
Is Anyone Above the Law? Is it Prosecution or Correction We Most Need To Recover From Crimes That Affect So Many?
Is a process of truth, reconcilitaion and correction preferable to prosecution of wrong doing where the wrong doing has affected millions?
Two recent events in the public eye bring this questions to mind. (1)Obama undoubtedly at the urging of the Fed discouraged States from undertaking investigations and prosecution for bank frauds on behalf of consumers in favor of a settlement that would exempt banks from criminal liability and somehow reimburse injured consumers.As far as I know the deal does not include any substantial reform and does not include anything like "truth and reconciliation". As a board member of a bank regulatory agency for 10 years I understandthat a key function of Bank regulatory agencies is to maintain public confidence in the safety and soundness of banks. Corrections were undertaken discretely out of the public eye. But what happens when the very institutions charged with maintaining. a system worthy of trust and public confidence fails.? Does prsecution bring needed change? Are settlements with immunity from criminal liability justice? Does it bring abaout change?
(2) Although the Catholic Church World wide has struggled for decades with revelations and allegations of sexual abuse of parishioner children , a current effort by a reputable Human Rights Group to hold Pope Benedict to account in International Criminal Court could create a moral crisis throughout Christendom if the court were able to take the case ( which it may not be able to do) Is a public trial of a Pope the answer or is there greater public interest served by internal transformations that involve the public in a process of healing and restructuring?
Human Rights Watch has complained that the International Criminal Court ( established in 2002) has tended to avoid cases involving heads of state and government officials.
Mandela chose a course of moral correction and accountability over trials. When is that model the best course?
Closing Statement from Lindsay Newland Bowker
When we think of criminal activity affecting thousands of people systematically and continuously over many years we normally think of the mafia or drug cartels. We don’t think of the largest Christian organization in the world. We don’t think of our banking system, our financial markets, our own central bank, our bank regulatory agencies. Our own governments.
These aren’t crimes of a single individual ,a few Bernie Madoffs, a few errant priests. These are systemic crimes that took collaboration, consensus, concealment throughout the financial system, throughout the church at all levels throughout the world....for years.
They are both crimes against humanity.both with global impacts.
I felt these two concurrent issues of how to pursue justice, where and how to apply available law, raised some very fundamental questions about what we have allowed law to become and how we allow law to selectively operate or not operate according to who the criminal is.These are both issues about us as global citizens..both the processes enabled by bank and market deregulation in 2000 and the many decades long scandal of child expoliation by preists have touched lives worldwide..touched people close to each us worldwide.
It seemed to me to be exactly the kind of issue TED Conversations was created for.
I am profoundly grateful for the global conversation we have had here at TED...for the sort of collaborative search for meaning and justice we have engaged on the workings of law in response to these two systemic global crimes..
Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.
Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.
Debra Smith 200+
OK, if I transfer what I know of infection prevention (often containment) in hospitals to these issues, I cannot imagine anyone suggesting that we just give the surfaces a wipe and hope for the best. No. We advise them to expose all of the surfaces (no matter how difficult that might be - from beds and linens, drapes between beds, mattresses, computer keyboard, phones, diagnostic equipment) to appropriate disinfection and light and air. C.diff for example will go into a spore state that hibernates and hides in cracks in mattresses. You cannot leave the spore unless you are looking forward to another outbreak.
It was only after media began to publish outbreaks of hospital acquired diseases and that governments and overseeing bodies began to hold them publicly accountable that the disease rates in hospitals went down (and they are still the 4th leading cause of death in North America!) How many die depends on just how diligently they pursue the organism.
My point is that without full exposure another infection of the same disease in the church or in the banking institutions is likely. Keeping it behind closed doors is something that has been tried already for as long as these institutions existed. Like hospitals, they abused or misused that privilege and now full disclosure may be the only way to save us all.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Yes of course, it takes a full public "exposition" of the truth, a thorough understanding, in the case of institutions of how and why that systemic failure happened, and a road map for reform with a realistic near term schedule of implementation.
The process of prosecution seems to be our "gold standard" for what truth is and how it is found..it is truth against a specific standard where ( except for new laws) there is a long history of how that standard is interpreted and applied. The prosecution itself, though, doesn't bring about the reconciliation and reformation process..it's not part of the process.
Are you suggesting that we need that afiirmation of truth under law before any of the restitution and reformation part can happen? That certainly has been how we do things in the West. As a consumer advocate, that has always been in the fore for me..something I sought and advocated.
But mostly my focus always has been on how to reform or fine tune and calibrate big systems and instiutitions that affect our lives in fundamental ways. That's what I feel is key in both these examples.In the case of apartheid and in the case of what went fundamentally awry in our banking and money market system it was the law itself that fostered and perpetuated what went wrong., what was wrong. In many ways, what Mandelas Truth and Reconciliation Commissin did was put the law itself, the sytem itself on trial.
Prosecution for fraud, as envisioned by the State Atorney's General will be in the context of law and regulation as it existed.t won't put the sytem istelf on trial in the same way that Mandela's Commission did. Also I am not sure the Pope's trial for Crimes Aginst Humanity will get to the core issue of the church's accountability to law oustide itself.
My gut in both cases cited in the framing of my question is that the system itself is what needs to be put on trial and scrutinized .
Thanks again for your great post.
Debra Smith 200+
My infection parallel is merely to put in bold relief that the infection stays in warm dark places like what the church and the banks are still providing. Without full exposure, there is no chance that the evil is rooted out. Without full exposure there is no hope of trust being reinstated.
If I got the job from the Vatican today to handle this crisis situation and de-escalate it - I would first sit them all down and make them watch an old movie with Anthony Quin called 'The shoes of the fisherman'. Step two: I would have the Pope Himself listen to the confession of each and every perpetrator and request that each perpetrator be willing to have his confession published (that would be the equivalent of those who came forward in Mandela's hearings) and then if the Church deemed them worthy, they would be given absolution (this would be consistent with the Church's standard procedures- all sinners can be forgiven). As in normal confessional procedures- the perpetrators would be assessed a penance commensurate with the crime. Either the first or the last event would be to have the Pope himself publicly confess to sins of omission and commission on behalf of the church. The end of the matter would be to establish one fund out of the Vatican riches to compensate all of the injured and another to help the poor and needy as a further penance.
The banks are another matter.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+