Though mercy and justice seem to be contradicting terms, I think that mercy and justice can co-exist.
Justice is enacted in court to bring about impartialness, fairness and equality to the human race, and in turn, to achieve a better well-being of the society. For example, convicts and felons are penalized and jailed to deter them from doing illegal activities again, and at the same time, allowing people to live safely and peacefully. However, it must be recognized that justice itself in court is merely a set of regulations that is determined by human race for humans themselves to abide to, which is formal and contrived, strict and unforgiving and inflexible. This set of rule, or justice, also functions as a way for the accusation party or the victim to have a chance to revenge on the prosecuted.
However, why do we still see examples of a party that is obviously wrong, being alleviated from the sufferings and punishments he ought to face when justice is enacted, since the rules in court are done by the book and condemning?
This is no doubt because the divine virtue of mercy influenced the accusation party’s final decision, thus having justice and mercy both displayed in court. Mercy, the kind human nature of forgiveness and sympathy, eases the punishments that the prosecuted ought to face, and it could indeed exist together with justice.
One example would be the Iranian acid attacker, who corroded a female’s facial features by spraying concentrated acid on the victim’s face. He was subjected to a punishment which allowed the victim to spray acid back on the man’s face, basing on the court rule “Qesas”, which in English is the rule for “an eye for an eye”. However, he was, in the end, pardoned by the victim, because the victim could not bear to destroy another’s face by empathizing with his state.
In this example, justice is shown when the victim was allowed to exact revenge on the attacker, since the court permits this act as legal and thus letting her earn the opportunity of getting her fairness and rights back. If she does so, both parties would be equal and at quits. However, the victim did not do this because she was merciful. She could not bear to do this cruel act. Therefore, the fact that the court gave the opportunity for the victim to revenge is enacting justice, but mercy is at the same time seen, since the victim did not practice the action.
In conclusion, this example shows that justice could indeed co-exist in mercy, since justice and mercy are two independent things. I feel that the reason behind the conventional way of thinking that justice could not co-exist with mercy is because mercy is rarely seen in court, since there are rarely any cases in which the accusation party would be merciful. If not, it is because the news that we read in our daily lives are mainly about the prosecuted committing a grave mistake, in which mercy itself could not alleviate the sufferings of the prosecuted since the prosecuted might pose even greater harm and damage to the society. And I shall once again reiterate that mercy and justice are totally two different things, and there should not be any misconceptions that mercy could not co-exist with justice.
