We citizens share an old distrust of the law, the conviction that initiating any judicial or administrative action can only bring you headaches, sleepless nights and many expenses. That is why I am impressed by the joy with which our political class appears in court again and again.
I don’t know about you, but I walk through the door of a courthouse and I already look guilty. Cold sweats. Want to get out of there as soon as possible. The same thing if I enter a police station, even to renew my ID: the fear of being detained lasts until I go out into the street and walk away. Or when I go through passport control in another country and the policeman looks at my document and observes me, and I look like a terrorist or trafficker. Let alone a roadblock, I just need to get out of the car and lie down on the asphalt with my hands on my head. When it comes to confessing intimacies, it also happens to me if I have to do any procedure with the Treasury or Social Security. I take a number, I shrink while I wait, and I arrive at the official’s table about to collapse: I confess, it was me.
I clarify that I have all the papers in order, nothing to hide from the law or the administration. But I know that it is a very widespread fear: of justice, of authority, of the State machinery, of bureaucracy, of the arbitrariness that suddenly overtakes you, of seeing yourself trapped in a misunderstanding or coincidence from which you will not be able to get out. easily. That you can’t escape the process, or you can’t access someone who can solve your problem, like Kafka’s characters, so bureauphobic he is. Few things make me as uneasy as opening the mailbox and finding a letter that addresses me using my full name, the one that only appears in administrative procedures. Having a postman bring me a burofax is the worst of my nightmares.
The Spanish proverb already says it more gracefully than I do: “you have lawsuits.” And it says more: “have lawsuits and win them,” as a curse. Distrust of the law, the conviction that initiating any judicial or administrative action can only bring you headaches, sleepless nights and many expenses. Even if it ends up being favorable to you, even if you win the lawsuit you will prefer to have been spared the ordeal.
That is why I am always impressed by the joy with which our political class appears in court again and again. For nothing and less they go and file a complaint against a political rival, or join a complaint, or bring some newspaper clippings for them to investigate. The last ones, the nonsense of the PP about the illegal financing of the PSOE that there was no way to get it, and the response of the PSOE announcing that it will sue again against the PP. And I think the same about the confessed criminal who asks those who call him a confessed criminal to recant, under threat of a lawsuit. Or those organizations like Hazte Oír or the Christian Lawyers, which spend their mornings in court denouncing politicians, tweeters or comedians for hatred (Quequé has been the last to suffer this). And in general, the endless judicialization of politics, using the courts as a third legislative chamber, as an alternative to the polls or as a motion of censure against rivals, always confident of finding favorable judges and legal tricks, or getting at least a news sentence. .
The average citizen changes sidewalks if they have to pass by a court or police station, lest a door opens, they mistake them for someone and they end up inside. The common citizen does not argue with the Treasury beyond what is reasonable, and pays his traffic fines at the first notice so that they are left in half. The average citizen does not go through life saying “I’ll talk to my lawyer,” or “we’ll see you in court.” The common citizen tells himself “you have lawsuits…”, and feels a galactic distance from those litigation professionals, those who seem to feel an intimate pleasure in receiving a burofax in their name.
#lawsuits.. #politician
