I believe that we are storytellers. But we write stories that have to be entirely based in reality. Because these stories are backed by the judicial truth. Can we talk about my justice, your justice, our justice, and other people's justice?
There is only one truth. I will begin with a question: What is justice? Can we talk about my justice, your justice, our justice, and other people's justice? Or is justice unique, and any other variation, any other hypothesis pure fiction?
My name is Radu, and I'm a prosecutor. But... I could say, evocatively, that I'm actually a storyteller. Why am I saying this? While I was fleshing out my speech, I thought: What do I do, what do you do, as professionals in law, to achieve the act of justice? I could have tried to give complex definitions related to the principle of discovering the truth and achieving justice. However, I will go on with this idea. I think that we are storytellers. But we write stories that have to be entirely based in reality. Because these stories are backed by the judicial truth. Allow me to tell you a different kind of story...
There was a prosecutor, working in a certain office, analyzing the documents and the evidence of a file, the investigation being over, who observes the following... From then on, the story shifts to the third-person perspective, in which the main character is the defendant. The prosecutor has to give a detailed description of the acts he committed, with explicit reference to the evidence because on its basis we can ascertain the truth of the matter.
Also, the prosecutor creates a legal classification of the facts. This story, if I may call it this way, is unusual, because it is possible that the main character of this story goes to court and tries to challenge the contents of the story. Your Honor, the story told by the prosecutor in the indictment is a work of pure fiction. As the indictment ends, the prosecutor, just like the author of a novella, writes his name down and signs it. This is the document that institutes the proceedings. Now, we may ask ourselves the following question: How much influence does one's own experience, life, insecurities, and misconceptions have on this document? Let me tell you another story. I was admitted to the National Institute of the Magistracy in 2016 and, during the interview I gave for the admission contest, I had to comment the following quote: Justice is man's ability to rise above his own misconceptions. I paused to think about what I could say about this quote. I talked about the issue of objective justice, the type of justice we should all aim for. Our opinions should converge in that direction. At the same time, we can't neglect the fact that there's something else, let's call it, subjective justice, influenced by our own life experience, our own insecurities. Our role as professionals in matters of law is, first and foremost, to acknowledge these subjective nuances and, after that, to refrain from using them, because, if we don't do it, our opinion as professionals will be influenced. I have to admit that there were situations where, after the hearings were conducted for a case, I was firmly convinced that the person in front of me was guilty of the deed he was being prosecuted for. My intuition wasn't just talking to me... It was screaming in a part of my mind that the defendants were guilty.
However, the evidence we were able to gather for that case wasn't sufficient to shape a charge beyond all reasonable doubt. In this context, the only viable option was to close the case. Behind that signature, I admit, there was a lot of frustration, because, I repeat, I was going against my own intuition, but that was the path I had to follow in order to achieve justice, that social justice, because every solution we give has to be backed by solid and tangible proof, in order to justify the charge. The truth has only one version, whereas fiction has an infinity of different versions. There is only one truth. What happened in fact, what the prosecutor has to record in his indictment has only one version. The process the prosecutor has to follow is to gather evidence in order to succeed in proving that unique truth.
Sadly, there are quite a few situations, in which the evidence can't be gathered that easily, which is why, sometimes, what we call judicial truth is not entirely consistent with the factual truth, with what really happened.
As professionals in matters of law, we wear the court dress as a judge, lawyer or prosecutor and we have to tend in that direction, sometimes even going against our own intuition. It's a risky endeavor, because we risk, to a certain extent, to lose our own individuality. We risk forgetting that, behind the signature we put on a document behind the legal assistance we give as a lawyer, behind the indictment we sign as a prosecutor or behind the sentence, the ruling we give, as a judge, there is a human being. A human being with his own insecurities, his own misconceptions, his own life experience. I repeat: trying to refrain ourselves from all these personal matters is a risky direction to take, but, as professionals in matters of law, we have to do this. Allow me to tell you what happened at the first session of the generation Leaders for Justice 10. I see some of my colleagues from that generation in the room, and I am very happy to see them here. Since it was a festive moment...
As a coincidence, it was also my birthday, I took the floor and I recited a poem. Allow me to try to recreate at least part of that moment.
A poem is, first and foremost, a work of fiction, but try to see if you can find at least a grain of truth in the following: To laugh is to risk appearing a fool, To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return, To live is to risk dying, To hope is to risk despair, To try is to risk failure. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. I bow.