Criminal Minds, S1E21 Quote 1

No human or a person can ever claim that he / she has complete knowledge or truth, since no human can ever gain complete knowledge or know exact truth. Only Allah or God or Yahweh or Bhagwan or whatever other name you have for a Supreme Being can ever claim or say that because only It knows the what the real truth is.

Allah revealed that truth in Quran & whoever reads it, without any biases or presumptions, & with an open mind, starts to see the real truth & gain that knowledge, which will benefit him / her the most in this mortal life & in the immortal life in the hereafter.

Disclaimer: Yes, Albert Einstein was an atheist, & hence, most likely didn't believe in the latter half of the quote.

"Belle" movie quote

Wikipedia          RottenTomatoes          IMDB

Respect women's right to wear veil in court

A great article & a good piece of advice from a competent person with years of experience in the legal sphere.

However, a majority of people in the West will start saying that how a court can pass a judgement when the witness is hidden behind a piece of cloth. Heck, in Canada, the current government of Mr. Harper & Co. have already brought a piece of legislation in the parliament, to ban veil in citizenship oath ceremonies, just so the judges can see that everyone is actually reading the oath. What's next? Keeping tabs on all immigrants, to see if they do really love their country & are loyal to it (sort of like North Korea).

If loyalty is to be measured by actually reading the oath, then what about all those rich Canadian business elites who stash their billions in offshore havens, & avoid paying taxes like the plague, but still use all the amenities of being a Canadian citizen. Are they loyal Canadians? Anyway, I digress.

So, on one end, public complains that people who have years of relevant experiences (to the given subject) & competencies should make such calls. When one makes such a call, then they decry why he/she is saying such things. So, the public will be happy as long as the person, saying something important in public sphere, merely confirm their biases. Anything other than that is a blight on that person's competencies.

One other common comment, which really rile me up, in such situation is said by the common public, is why don't these immigrants go back to their own countries, if they wanted to keep following their native country's cultures & norms. Good question.

My answer is no immigrant want to leave their beloved country & start a whole new life in another country, especially, since, their adopted country don't even accept them as full citizens. Developed countries stop interfering, politically & militarily, in developing countries' affairs & let them sink or swim. A majority of immigrants will stop migrating themselves.

After all, UN was made to end international wars & bring peace around the world. Well, the world history of the past 60 years has shown something else ... there are now more displaced people than ever & human suffering around the world has only increased in the past 60 years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/apr/17/respect-womens-right-to-weir-veil-in-court-says-britains-most-senior-judge

Judges must show respect to women who choose to keep their faces covered due to their religious beliefs, the UK’s most senior judge has said.
 
Lord Neuberger said judges must have “an understanding of different cultural & social habits” in their bid to show fairness to those involved in trials.
 
Addressing the Criminal Justice Alliance, the supreme court president said: “It is necessary to have some understanding as to how people from different cultural, social, religious or other backgrounds think & behave & how they expect others to behave.

“Well-known examples include how some religions consider it inappropriate to take the oath, how some people consider it rude to look other people in the eye, how some women find it inappropriate to appear in public with their face uncovered, & how some people deem it inappropriate to confront others or to be confronted - for instance with an outright denial.”

In 2014 Judge Peter Murphy upheld a ruling allowing Muslim woman Rebekah Dawson to stand trial wearing a full-face veil.
 
The 22-year-old waived her right to give evidence in her defence, however, after it was ruled that she would have to remove the niqab, which made only her eyes visible, if she took the stand.
 
She later admitted witness intimidation after denying the charge during a seven-day trial.
 
In a lengthy speech entitled “Fairness in the courts: the best we can do”, Neuberger accepted that judges tended to come from privileged backgrounds & warned of the dangers of this. “A white male public school judge presiding in a trial of an unemployed traveller from eastern Europe accused of assaulting or robbing a white female public school woman will, I hope, always be unbiased,” he said.

“However he should always think to himself what his subconscious may be thinking or how it may be causing him to act; & he should always remember how things may look to the defendant, & indeed to the jury & to the public generally.”

Neuberger said judges & lawyers should always keep in mind how “intimidating” the court process could be for those involved in trials, including “the parties, their families, the victims, the witnesses & the jurors”.

Speaking in the context of legal aid cuts, he said ensuring all parties involved in a case understood the goings-on in a court had become more important because “people are having to choose between representing themselves or not getting justice at all”.

Snitch fact

This is what the country gets when the justice system gets greedy. Prisons have become for-profit businesses. State & Federal Attorney Generals have aspirations to become governors etc. & hence, their performance is based on how many people, innocent or guilty, get in the prison system. Judges are paid well to hand down harsher sentences for misdemeanors.
 
Result is that prisons are getting filled up. For-profit companies are using those prisoners in those prisons as slave-labour to manufacture products. Judges & AGs are being perceived as increasing safety & security for the ordinary citizens.

 

The losers are people who make one mistake in their life & will pay very dearly for that one mistake until their death; be it financial, social, economical cost (unemployed, discriminated etc.).

 

IMDB          RottenTomatoes          Wikipedia

Quebec judge who demanded hijab removal needs a Charter lesson

On Thursday, Quebec Judge Eliana Marengo turned away a single mother coming to court trying to get back her impounded car. She wasn’t even driving the car when it was impounded. She had done nothing wrong. Nothing, that is, except wear the same religious head scarf she had worn for years, including when she swore her Oath of Allegiance to Canada.
 
Every way you look at this issue, the Quebec judge was just plain wrong.
 
First, let’s talk about the law. The Supreme Court of Canada has already decided the issue, dead against what this judge did. Freedom of religion is a Charter right. According to the Charter, religious freedoms can be limited only if the limits are both reasonable, & demonstrably justifiable. So what sort of limits on religious freedoms are reasonable & demonstrably justifiable?
 
How does wearing a head scarf similarly interfere with the proper functioning of the courts? Why is the head scarf a problem? Courts listen to people & make decisions based on what they hear. Does a head scarf interfere with a court’s ability to hear a person, understand them, & make a decision based on what they say? Of course not. So to return to the legal test, violating someone’s religious freedom by forcing them to remove a piece of religious head gear before they testify in court is neither reasonable nor demonstrably justifiable, & never could be. By the way, Sikhs have been wearing turbans in court for years, & Jews have been wearing yarmulkes. The justice system accommodates them all just fine. Do all those fine folks now have to partially disrobe as well? What about that terrible clerical collar? And while you’re at it, why not insist that all religious facial hair be shaved? It’s hard to detect a smirk or a frown behind a thicket of dense fur.
 
The judge offered 2 explanations for her position. Both are bogus. She said non-religious persons remove hats & sunglasses. So, she argues, she is just treating the person with the religious head scarf the same as everyone else. This is patently absurd. Does the judge really think religious apparel is no different than sunglasses & baseball caps? If she really thinks that, she does not know the first thing about religious beliefs & practices, & the depth & meaning they bring to many peoples’ lives. As a lawyer I’ve had to read the Charter once or twice, & I’ve never found the slightest reference to freedom of shades & fedoras. But I did find freedom of religion, right up front, in s.2(a). So the comparison argument is a non-starter.
 
The judge also said that courtrooms are a secular place, & must remain so. At least this argument has the tiny but questionable virtue of being only half-baked. Courtrooms are secular in that the law they apply can have no entrenched advantages for any one religious group. But that is not the issue here. The issue here is access to justice. Courtrooms dispense justice, & justice must be equally accessible for everyone, regardless of what, if any, religious beliefs they hold, & how they practise (or not) those religious beliefs. We can no more exclude from a courtroom a hijab-wearing woman seeking justice than we could exclude from a hospital emergency room a hijab-wearing woman with serious injuries seeking treatment. Remember that ancient Roman goddess Justitia with the scales in her hand? ... she has worn a blindfold because she welcomes everyone to court, & judges people based on the evidence, not on skin colour, gender, clothing, or religion.
 
No doubt the judge in question is a committed secularist. And I for one would defend vigorously her personal freedom to hold those views whether I agree with them or not. But in doing what she did in her capacity as a judge, she is, ironically for a secularist, no better than the fundamentalist religious dogmatists who try to exclude those with different beliefs from fully participating in, & benefiting from, essential social institutions.
 
What the judge did was profoundly un-Canadian. And profoundly wrong.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/judge-who-demanded-hijab-removal-needs-a-charter-lesson/article23227798/

 

Canadian judge tells Muslim woman to remove her headscarf

Thanks to the tone being set by our dear Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, life for practicing Muslims keep getting harder & harder in Canada. Islamophobia is on the rise. People think hijabs & veils are an affront to Canadian values & must not be worn in Canada. Violence & harassment are on the rise in Canada against Canadian women & men. Discrimination was & keep increasing against Muslims; be it be in the jobs, healthcare, education ... & now in the courts, too.

Thankfully, French-like ban on hijabs etc. hasn't become a law, yet, but the way Islamophobia is increasing across the developed world, it can be anticipated soon. But then, again, sometimes, these bans & religious symbols work in favour of Islam. I hope it's the latter case.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Muslim woman was reportedly told to remove her headscarf before a Canadian judge would hear her case.

 

Judge Eliana Marengo was said to have told Rania El-Alloul that the courtroom in Montreal is a secular place & she was not suitably dressed.

 

'Hats & sunglasses for example, are not allowed. And I don't see why scarves on the head would be either,' it was claimed she said in a recording of proceedings, according to CBC News.

 

After the hearing she was said to have felt scared & 'not Canadian anymore,' CBC reported.

 

Her case was said to have been adjourned indefinitely.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2971856/Canadian-judge-tells-Muslim-woman-not-hear-case-removes-headscarf.html