The NLJ Column

The concept of justice has been articulated through diverse perspectives. Some years ago, I represented the employees of the failed bank BCCI and was presented with a t-shirt proclaiming that “BCCI victims demand justice”.
At the time, in the heat of advocacy, defending the jobs, pensions and mortgages of these stricken people, I gave little thought to what the slogan really meant.

At its most simplistic it meant that those who had suffered at the hands of the bank should be afforded, by the law, recompense and satisfaction for the ills that had befallen them as a result of the bank’s inadequacies. What it really meant was that they received proportionate and proper compensation from the liquidator’s fund of money provided by those hurt by the bank’s collapse. This was not justice, it was compensation. The t-shirt should have read “BCCI victims demand compensation”. But “justice” is a better word—evocative of the moral high ground and leaden with emotion. While society might refuse claimants compensation, it would