25/11/2015
COMMONWEALTH’S ATTORNEY’S COMMENTS
Robert Cunningham, Lancaster County Commonwealth’s AttorneyThanksgiving morning I was thinking of the many things for which we should be thankful in our homes and across our great land. Things came to mind such as family and health and a strong sense of community. I also contemplated how fairness and justice have to be counted among the highest. Whether it be in a game of football or in a courtroom, where parties are clashing and vying for a resolution to their particular concerns, a guiding rule of fairness and justice is required.
Fairness is the cornerstone, the bedrock of our justice system. It should be what we strive for. Ultimately, it is the essence of what our citizenry expects from our legal system as well. The idea of justice and fairness has always been a theme in the lives of the American people, buried in their psyche and counted upon every day. It is the standard by which all persons demand to be judged.
Our founding fathers realized how crucial justice (the vehicle of fairness) was to avoid the tyranny they escaped when moulding the laws of their new world. They knew it was paramount to avoid the capriciousness of a monarchy where the crown wielded absolute power. To accomplish this they planted justice firmly in the Constitution. These architects formed their new government in their new land with a vision of justice for “WE, THE PEOPLE.” They gave authority to that vision by forming three branches of government to ensure a system of checks and balances at the highest levels. It was monumental and simple. They gave justice the weight and power of the executive and legislative branches, no more no less, the same.
The standard was set by our founding fathers and has applied since. Following those founding days there have been many battles over right and wrong, justice and injustice, and times when justice held her head high or low. However, there has always remained the constancy and standard struck in the Constitution that justice will be. The American people know and depend on this idea of justice and fairness. They expect it to be so integrated that it is carried out every day without arbitrariness, without coups, without regime change that we see in too many countries and with the stability and absoluteness guaranteed to all in the United States.
This Thanksgiving we have much for which to be thankful, and living in a country that holds justice and fairness so high is one of them.
