Legal system still shockingly medieval?
Today i’m gonna share a story with you that has been discussed a lot in Greece during the last months. The personal story of the girl involved has really shocked me regardless of whether she is guilty or innocent, which i can’t know(evidence shows that she’s probably guilty, she seems to claim that she’s innocent). Even more shocking is, however, a side of the legislation that, despite its good incentives, ends up being deeply immoral and unbelievably medieval. After an introduction about this girl’s story, i’ll speak about this provision of the law.
The story
A 19-year-old Greek girl was arrested in November in the airport of Hong-Kong for possessing 2 1/2 kilos of cocaine(estimated at about 300.000€€) in her hand luggage.
This girl had grown up on a greek Island, Mutilini. When she was 18, she told her parents that she was going to a place in Greece far away from her island to study. She left, but she lied to her parents and she never even registered in that university. Her real dream was to become a model.
At some point, someone approached her through facebook and promised her that he could help her become a successful, international model. She ended up in Addis Abeba, the capital of Ethiopia, receiving this huge package of cocaine and getting it to Hong-Kong.
As I already mentioned, she was arrested in the airport of Hong-Kong. She has been desperately crying for the last months that she is innocent. I am not sure about her arguments, because this is an ongoing procedure. Some sites write that she claims that she didn’t even know what she had in her bag, someone put it without her knowing anything. And that’s why, according to her, she wasn’t stressed during the controls in the airport (which the employees seem to admit). Others claim that she might not have known what exactly was inside those “packages”. The man who sent her there could have just asked her to give this package to a “friend”.
In any case, she has been arrested. Her parents have no money for her advocacy. Just for the very first payments of the Hong Kong layers, at about 8.000€ are required. Due to the publicity of this case in Greece, a famous Greek lawyer took the case and he tried to gather money from prominent people so that Hong-Kong lawyers are paid in order to take the girl’s case. The family wished to get the girl back to Greece so that she is tried there, but this seems impossible.
Before I elaborate on the huge judicial problem, I can confess you that this story has really shocked me. I’m not sure why. I am one of those people who read news in the sites and say “that’s sad” and then just go on to the next news without being really affected. But the idea of a girl that cries for three months unstoppable as well as the idea of a 19-year old girl that realizes that she will spend part or her whole youth in a prison thousands kilometers from her homeland seems to me terrible. How can she endure something like that?
Now, many Greeks write in comments in the social media: “we are not gonna feel sorry for a drug dealer, people die because of them. She deserves it”. Ok, my sadness is not connected to a belief that she is innocent. The evidence shows that she’s probably not. Or to be more specific, she probably knew that she was doing something illegal. I personally doubt that in any case she was conscious of the extent of her crime and I guess that she also didn’t have in her mind all those personal and family dramas that that drug would create. She was a young girl with ambitions, she was promised many things by people who tried to present her all this deal as less important and less dangerous. I don’t know if she is innocent, guilty or just less guilty that she seems. I just feel sorry for a 19-year-old that realizes that she will be deprived of the most things that the majority of the young people have.
Of course, fighting against the disaster of the drugs is vital so of course I would never approve indulgent laws against the drug trafficking. I just share my thoughts about a young girl that maybe made the right choices and will now have to endure a very harsh punishment for them.
The deeply immoral provision of the law
Here is, however, the most shocking thing, in my opinion, in all this story and it doesn’t so much have to do with this case, but in general. She was arrested in November. In February she will have to declare to the judge if she is innocent or guilty. If she confesses her guilt, she will be punished with at about 15–16 years of imprisonment, which may be reduced even to 10–12 if she has a good behavior during those years.
If, on the other side, she declares herself innocent and she doesn’t prove it, then she will be punished with at about 25 years or even more.
By the way, in the first scenario the cost would still be unaffordable for the family (more than 10.000€ totally), while in the second scenario it would be many times more expensive, because the judicial process would take a long time. But that’s another –maybe even more important- proof that in many occasions it is funny to even speak about justice. What justice is it that if someone who may be innocent cannot even support his/her innocence due to the lack of those huge sums of money that are required.
But let’s see now the crazy moral dilemma which is imposed on the accused person by this system. First of all, I do not doubt the good incentive of the law. “If you regret and confess your guilt instead of lying till the very end, you will have a better treatment regarding the punishment”. (“and we will have less expenses and less paperwork to do”-but let’s skip this part). In theory it is correct with terrible side effects.
Let’s say that someone is innocent. Maybe not this girl, but surely some other people are indeed innocent, even sometimes when there is enough evidence for the opposite. Those people are being warned by their lawyers that they can confess a guilt (although they are innocent!!!) and accept an imprisonement, for example, of 10–12 years, otherwise they may end up in the prison for 25 years for a crime they did not commit!
If they confess that they are guilty although they are not, they can’t even go to the court and explain why they innocent, give to the court the evidence that might finally lead to their acquittal! Everything is over and they are getting imprisoned for many years for a crime they never committed. If they don’t confess their guilt and they fail to prove their innocence, there will be the following realistic but unbelievable scenario: A totally innocent person stays in the prison for 25 years, while someone who committed the crime and immediately confessed might stay for 10–12 years.
And the worst of all? Each and every innocent person in this scenario will have to choose, actually will have to BET. “Will I prove my innocence or I will stay, for example, double amount of time in the prison?”. It’s pure gambling. It’s a deeply immoral dilemma that I can’t imagine that there are people out there that will have to decide between. “Will I confess a crime I did not commit or I will stay in the prison, f.e., 10 more years for not confessing it?”. How different is that from the periods when people were being tortured till they confess something they didn’t do? Ok, the pressure in this “modern” legal system is not physical, but it is psychological.
Just so that I am not misunderstood, I don’t claim that all this is the big majority of the cases. In most cases, when there is much evidence about a murder or drug trafficking or something else, then it is true. And I also guess that all the legal systems are not the same in every country. Apparently the number of the reducing years depending the confession may also be less (or more!) than in the example above.
But this dilemma remains deeply unethical for any innocent person that may be in this position, either if it many people out there or only one in the whole planet.
P.S. As you surely understood, i have no knowledge about law. I am just a citizen with some thoughts that may or may not be partly correct. Feel free to share your aspect below!
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