Toronto Star | 30May2011 | Dow Marmur
http://www.thestar.com/Opinion/EditorialOpinion/article/998682
Marmur: The clash between
justice and law
In 1988, two years after the Ukrainian-born John (Ivan) Demjanjuk was
deported from the United States to Israel, he was identified as “Ivan
the Terrible,” a vicious guard in Nazi extermination camps. He was
sentenced to death, only the second such verdict in the country’s
history. But five years later, Israel’s Supreme Court overturned the
lower court’s decision due to doubts about Ivan’s real identity.
Not long thereafter I had the temerity to suggest to one of the five
judges who let Demjanjuk go free that it seemed obvious the man was
guilty of the murder of countless concentration camp inmates. The judge
agreed but maintained that the legal evidence wasn’t sufficient to
convict him.
[W.Z.
The hypocrisy of Dow Marmur is boundless: There is no evidence that
"Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk" killed anyone; nevertheless he is
"guilty of the murder of countless concentration camp inmates." The
simplified message is: "You are Ukrainian; therefore, you are guilty."]
Later, the then president of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, was
quoted as saying, “If Demjanjuk was not Ivan the Terrible, then he was
Ivan the not-so-terrible. He was there, he participated in the
destruction.”
However, that wasn’t supported by the law. Even if justice isn’t
divine, it’s often beyond the human capacity to administer it fully and
fairly. All that’s given to mortals, however committed and erudite they
may be, is to make laws and apply them as best they can. When the legal
evidence is inconclusive, justice may suffer, as it appears to have
done in the Demjanjuk case.
It took another 18 years and massive legal wrangling before the
91-year-old Demjanjuk -- now making the most of his age and alleged
infirmities by being brought into the court each day on a stretcher --
was again found guilty, this time not in Israel but in Germany.
Last month, a court in Munich convicted Demjanjuk of complicity in the
murder of a very large number of prisoners in the Sobibor death camp
and sentenced him to five years in jail. But he was immediately
released pending an appeal. In view of his age and the slow pace of the
law, it’s most unlikely that he’ll ever go to prison.
Tom Segev, the Israeli historian and journalist whose latest book is a
biography of the famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, described the
sentence as grotesque “because a simple calculation shows that he will
serve exactly one hour and 31 minutes for his part in the murder of
each of the 28,060 Sobibor prisoners” who were his victims.
[W.Z. In my
opinion, "Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal" was a fraud and one of the most
evil persons of the twentieth century.]
The disparity between justice and law prompts the troubling question:
Why has this accomplice to the Nazi mass murders got a sentence that
befits someone who has perhaps committed manslaughter, not mass murder?
The ostensibly pious answer that true justice can only be administered
by God and that the culprits will get their just deserts in hell is
probably no consolation to the surviving relatives of the victims. And
the claims that the time has come to close the books or that this “nice
neighbour” from Cleveland must be innocent are equally offensive. It’s
tempting to see the excuses as phony magnanimity at the expense of
others.
Segev’s defence of the verdict despite its grotesque nature is to the
point. He sees it as a deterrent “to illustrate to every young person
in uniform that in all places, and under all circumstances, there are
patently illegal orders that must not be obeyed.” Even if justice is
beyond our grasp, the law is within our reach. It must be applied under
all circumstances, however long it takes and however inadequate the
outcome.
Last week, after 16 years’ ostensible search, Serbian security officers
arrested Ratko Mladic, the military leader accused of murdering 8,000
Muslims in Srebrenica during the Balkan wars. He, too, will now have
his day in court.
Dow Marmur is rabbi
emeritus at Toronto's Holy Blossom Temple. His column appears every
other week.