This post has been inspired by this week’s edition of our Black Adder style courts of law – the episodes that involved two French men who were found guilty of destroying an already destroyed bench in St. Julian’s, and two men being accused of the same single-handed hold up in B’kara.

Have you ever been in court when a judge sets bail for a defendant?

If you haven’t, please do yourself a favour and consider yourself very lucky, because whichever way it goes, whether the accused can afford it or not, whether you believe they’re innocent or guilty, the feeling of complete and utter injustice never fails to fill up the room.

Perhaps life has spared you such an experience so far, but I’m sure you’ve watched television shows during which judges bang their gavel and convincingly state “Bail is set at $50,000.”

The next thing you see is the defendant being rushed out of the courtroom, and his or her lawyers scrimmaging together in consultation.

After that, defendants who can afford the bail amount are set free, whilst the ones who can’t afford the amount, are set to rot away in jail.

Both wait for their trial dates and both are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but the stark difference of how we treat defendants with money and defendants without, is sickening – essentially, money buys freedom, albeit temporarily.

Now don’t get me wrong, I fully understand the concept of someone being a ‘flight risk’ or even a “danger to society,” and I understand that bail should not be granted to such people, but unfortunately, many a time, non-violent and non-threatening defendants who pose absolutely no threat to the public, suffer in jail simply because they cannot afford to buy their way out.

With our justice system being in the sorry state that it is, many cases, begin months, if not years, after an initial arrest, and if at the end of the day they are found innocent, all the state has to say to people who were stuck in jail for all this time is ‘tough luck.’

There’s no compensation for lost time, missed birthdays, weddings, forgone income, lost relationships, etc.

There’s no compensation for the psychological effect that being locked up inevitably brings with it, especially if you’re innocent.

And even though bail is supposedly set to be proportionate to a person’s income, we all know that it doesn’t always work that way, so the fact of the manner remains that even in today’s day and age, the rich can buy their freedom, and the poor are still left in the lurch.