Essay On Should Money Stand In The Way Of Justice

There is no denying that there is seemingly unequal access to justice in most legal systems. However, one of the biggest hindrances associated with access to justice is the disparity between the rich and the poor. In addition to the technical, complex, and cumbersome procedure that characterize most legal systems, people have to pay to access to have their issues addressed. The rich and the poor suffer the same fate with regard to largely retrogressive legal procedures. Notably, the poor suffer more injustices that the affluent since they are not able to afford the exorbitant legal fees that are set as a price for accessing justice.
Because of the high fees that people are expected to use while filing cases and hiring advocates to litigation has become impossible. In contemporary societies, the poor perceive justice as a luxury that is simply a preserve of the rich. As such, the poor continue to suffer in silence since the government has failed to ensure that justice is accessible to all members of the society regardless of the social, political, or economic disparity. The Vancouver gay and lesbian bookstore case is just one example of innumerable cases where courts have declined to consider apparent public interest cases because the litigant is unable to meet the cost of the legal process.
Pegging access to justice on how rich or poor a litigant is, is to say the least, discriminatory, thoughtless, and an impediment to justice. The famous quote by Martin Luther King Jr. that, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” perhaps summarizes the situation perfectly. Courts justify costly legal fees by stating that they are set to deter the abuse of the court processes. However, that argument does not factor those that cannot genuinely afford the exorbitant fees but have triable issues. This situation can only lead to society that is skewed in favor of the rich to the detriment of the poor. To avoid such scenario and to check against an abuse of the court process, courts should not be guided by whether litigants can pay the costs. Instead, they should consider every case on its own merit.
Every legal institution uses funds drawn from the public coffers, which exists because every citizen pays taxes. As far as the poor, just like the rich, pay taxes they are entitled to access help from public institutions notwithstanding their social status. Consequently, the law is supposed to protect every citizen and every citizen is equal before the law. There is no justice for the rich and justice for the poor. The term “access to justice” has become a politically correct term that does not change the fact that there is an imbalanced access to justice because of the inordinate litigation fees. Ideally, justice should not only be done but it should be seen to be done by every person in the society. Only then would the society be deemed just.