Charles Dickens once wrote:
“The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings.”
He wrote that in Bleak House in 1853, criticizing a legal system so consumed with its own process that justice became secondary to maintenance.
Nearly two centuries later, the question still lingers.
Justice should feel fair.
Not perfect. Not always victorious. But fair.
It should feel like you were heard.
Like the person on the bench actually listened.
Like the decision followed the facts — not the ego in the room.
I’ve met extraordinary lawyers and principled judges who understand that the robe is a symbol of restraint. And I’ve met others whose ego arrives 30 minutes before they take the bench — where impatience replaces inquiry and technical pouncing substitutes for thoughtful review.
A courtroom is one of the last places in civic life where one person controls the room entirely. That kind of authority demands humility. Without it, trust erodes quietly.
Corruption doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like indifference. Sometimes like favoritism. Sometimes like a mind already made up.
Justice doesn’t require perfection.
But it should feel like it was honestly pursued.
When it doesn’t, people notice.
And that’s when systems — like Dickens warned — begin to serve themselves instead of the public they were meant to protect.
The Valley Viewpoint 