Much of the outrage regarding the 'Taxi Sexual Assault' in New Delhi last week is centered around a belief that a proper background check on the driver wasn't done, one that would have revealed his past crimes as a sex offender.
What the media and the other Batmen and Robins tend to forget is that the concerned individual was acquitted of previous charges. In other words, the court of law found him to be innocent after assessing the evidence and questioning the witnesses, and there's no reason why he shouldn't have been employed as a taxi driver.
Allegations are simply not enough to deny a man or woman employment, or indeed, enough to boycott them socially or culturally. That's not to say that whoever so is let off by the courts is indeed innocent, but that more often than not, there exists reasonable doubt to question their guilt. Even so, mistakes do happen. These mistakes can go either way; guilty men may walk free, while the innocent may be in prison. Does your doubt regarding the efficacy of the judicial system translate into a belief that someone who has been condemned to a life in prison was perhaps wrongfully convicted?
And if we are turning into a society that presumes guilt before a proper examination of witnesses and evidence, our idea of justice is truly twisted beyond belief and it is rather fortunate that our judicial system does not have a provision for a jury. Else, we'd be condemning people to prison, or even the gallows, merely on the basis of suspicion and not actual evidence.
What the media and the other Batmen and Robins tend to forget is that the concerned individual was acquitted of previous charges. In other words, the court of law found him to be innocent after assessing the evidence and questioning the witnesses, and there's no reason why he shouldn't have been employed as a taxi driver.
Allegations are simply not enough to deny a man or woman employment, or indeed, enough to boycott them socially or culturally. That's not to say that whoever so is let off by the courts is indeed innocent, but that more often than not, there exists reasonable doubt to question their guilt. Even so, mistakes do happen. These mistakes can go either way; guilty men may walk free, while the innocent may be in prison. Does your doubt regarding the efficacy of the judicial system translate into a belief that someone who has been condemned to a life in prison was perhaps wrongfully convicted?
And if we are turning into a society that presumes guilt before a proper examination of witnesses and evidence, our idea of justice is truly twisted beyond belief and it is rather fortunate that our judicial system does not have a provision for a jury. Else, we'd be condemning people to prison, or even the gallows, merely on the basis of suspicion and not actual evidence.
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