courts

• first c. were regulated fistic encounters

70:11.13The first courts were reg­u­lated fistic en­coun­ters; the judges were merely um­pires or ref­er­ees. They saw to it that the fight was car­ried on ac­cord­ing to ap­proved rules. On en­ter­ing a court com­bat, each party made a de­posit with the judge to pay the costs and fine af­ter one had been de­feated by the other. “Might was still right.” Later on, ver­bal ar­gu­ments were sub­sti­tuted for phys­i­cal blows.

• status of civilization determined by equity of

70:11.14The whole idea of prim­i­tive jus­tice was not so much to be fair as to dis­pose of the con­test and thus pre­vent pub­lic dis­or­der and pri­vate vi­o­lence. But prim­i­tive man did not so much re­sent what would now be re­garded as an in­jus­tice; it was taken for granted that those who had power would use it self­ishly. Nev­er­the­less, the sta­tus of any civ­i­liza­tion may be very ac­cu­rately de­ter­mined by the thor­ough­ness and eq­uity of its courts and by the in­tegrity of its judges.

• continental and planetary

71:8.1311. The end­ing of war—in­ter­na­tional ad­ju­di­ca­tion of na­tional and racial dif­fer­ences by con­ti­nen­tal courts of na­tions pre­sided over by a su­preme plan­e­tary tri­bu­nal au­to­mat­i­cally re­cruited from the pe­ri­od­i­cally re­tir­ing heads of the con­ti­nen­tal courts. The con­ti­nen­tal courts are au­thor­i­ta­tive; the world court is ad­vi­sory—moral.

• industrial c. in continental nation

72:2.163. In­dus­trial courts—the ju­ris­dic­tional tri­bu­nals vested with full au­thor­ity for the set­tle­ment of all eco­nomic mis­un­der­stand­ings.

• industrial c. in continental nation

72:5.3These peo­ple have re­cently de­vel­oped new tech­niques for the ad­just­ment of in­dus­trial mis­un­der­stand­ings and for the cor­rec­tion of eco­nomic abuses which are marked im­prove­ments over their older meth­ods of set­tling such prob­lems. Vi­o­lence has been out­lawed as a pro­ce­dure in ad­just­ing ei­ther per­sonal or in­dus­trial dif­fer­ences. Wages, prof­its, and other eco­nomic prob­lems are not rigidly reg­u­lated, but they are in gen­eral con­trolled by the in­dus­trial leg­is­la­tures, while all dis­putes aris­ing out of in­dus­try are passed upon by the in­dus­trial courts.

72:5.4The in­dus­trial courts are only thirty years old but are func­tion­ing very sat­is­fac­to­rily. The most re­cent de­vel­op­ment pro­vides that here­after the in­dus­trial courts shall rec­og­nize le­gal com­pen­sa­tion as falling in three di­vi­sions:

• industrial c. in continental nation

72:7.91. Im­port du­ties. All im­ports are sub­ject to a tar­iff de­signed to pro­tect the stan­dard of liv­ing on this con­ti­nent, which is far above that of any other na­tion on the planet. These tar­iffs are set by the high­est in­dus­trial court af­ter both houses of the in­dus­trial congress have rat­i­fied the rec­om­men­da­tions of the chief ex­ec­u­tive of eco­nomic af­fairs, who is the joint ap­pointee of these two leg­isla­tive bod­ies. The up­per in­dus­trial house is elected by la­bor, the lower by cap­i­tal.

• money and influence should not control

132:4.8Meet­ing a poor man who had been falsely ac­cused, Je­sus went with him be­fore the mag­is­trate and, hav­ing been granted spe­cial per­mis­sion to ap­pear in his be­half, made that su­perb ad­dress in the course of which he said: “Jus­tice makes a na­tion great, and the greater a na­tion the more so­lic­i­tous will it be to see that in­jus­tice shall not be­fall even its most hum­ble cit­i­zen. Woe upon any na­tion when only those who pos­sess money and in­flu­ence can se­cure ready jus­tice be­fore its courts! It is the sa­cred duty of a mag­is­trate to ac­quit the in­no­cent as well as to pun­ish the guilty. Upon the im­par­tial­ity, fair­ness, and in­tegrity of its courts the en­durance of a na­tion de­pends. Civil gov­ern­ment is founded on jus­tice, even as true re­li­gion is founded on mercy.” The judge re­opened the case, and when the ev­i­dence had been sifted, he dis­charged the pris­oner. Of all Je­sus’ ac­tiv­i­ties dur­ing these days of per­sonal min­istry, this came the near­est to be­ing a pub­lic ap­pear­ance.

• accord justice with fairness according to needs

133:4.7To the Ro­man judge he said: “As you judge men, re­mem­ber that you your­self will also some day come to judg­ment be­fore the bar of the Rulers of a uni­verse. Judge justly, even mer­ci­fully, even as you shall some day thus crave mer­ci­ful con­sid­er­a­tion at the hands of the Su­preme Ar­biter. Judge as you would be judged un­der sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances, thus be­ing guided by the spirit of the law as well as by its let­ter. And even as you ac­cord jus­tice dom­i­nated by fair­ness in the light of the need of those who are brought be­fore you, so shall you have the right to ex­pect jus­tice tem­pered by mercy when you some­time stand be­fore the Judge of all the earth.”

• do not go to law among yourselves

140:3.14“I am send­ing you out into the world to rep­re­sent me and to act as am­bas­sadors of my Fa­ther’s king­dom, and as you go forth to pro­claim the glad tid­ings, put your trust in the Fa­ther whose mes­sen­gers you are. Do not forcibly re­sist in­jus­tice; put not your trust in the arm of the flesh. If your neigh­bor smites you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Be will­ing to suf­fer in­jus­tice rather than to go to law among your­selves. In kind­ness and with mercy min­is­ter to all who are in dis­tress and in need.

• Jews ordinarily provided every safeguard of fairness

184:3.4Or­di­nar­ily, the Jews, when try­ing a man on a cap­i­tal charge, pro­ceeded with great cau­tion and pro­vided ev­ery safe­guard of fair­ness in the se­lec­tion of wit­nesses and the en­tire con­duct of the trial. But on this oc­ca­sion, Cai­a­phas was more of a pros­e­cu­tor than an un­bi­ased judge.

• Jews ordinarily provided every safeguard of fairness

184:4.1The Jew­ish law re­quired that, in the mat­ter of pass­ing the death sen­tence, there should be two ses­sions of the court. This sec­ond ses­sion was to be held on the day fol­low­ing the first, and the in­ter­ven­ing time was to be spent in fast­ing and mourn­ing by the mem­bers of the court. But these men could not await the next day for the con­fir­ma­tion of their de­ci­sion that Je­sus must die. They waited only one hour. In the mean­time Je­sus was left in the au­di­ence cham­ber in the cus­tody of the tem­ple guards, who, with the ser­vants of the high priest, amused them­selves by heap­ing ev­ery sort of in­dig­nity upon the Son of Man. They mocked him, spit upon him, and cru­elly buf­feted him. They would strike him in the face with a rod and then say, “Proph­esy to us, you the De­liv­erer, who it was that struck you.” And thus they went on for one full hour, re­vil­ing and mis­treat­ing this un­re­sist­ing man of Gal­i­lee.

• Jews ordinarily provided every safeguard of fairness

184:5.6This en­tire pro­ce­dure was ir­reg­u­lar and wholly con­trary to the Jew­ish laws. No two wit­nesses had agreed on any mat­ter ex­cept those who tes­ti­fied re­gard­ing Je­sus’ state­ment about de­stroy­ing the tem­ple and rais­ing it again in three days. And even con­cern­ing that point, no wit­nesses spoke for the de­fense, and nei­ther was Je­sus asked to ex­plain his in­tended mean­ing.