Friday, September 14, 2007

Miscarriages of justice

Forget the Birmingham Six or the Guildford Four, this must be the ultimate case:

A CASE on behalf of Jesus Christ has come knocking on Kenya's High Court door, lodged by a fervent Christian group that wants his conviction declared null and void and his crucifixion illegal.

Though cases to right historical wrongs are far from unusual around the world, Kenya's Friends of Jesus (FOJ) has reached back two millennia in what may redefine the quest for closure.

The petition was filed on Monday with the court registrar, raising a novel set of legal quandaries - not the least of which involves the statute of limitations and whether the high court has jurisdiction over the Son of God.

The report continues,

They want "the court to declare Jesus's trial null and void ... because the (ancient) court that convicted him was not properly constituted, the prosecutors violated the law of the time and the trial was a sham", Mr Indindis said.

The FOJ's lawyer Humprey Odanga said Jesus's crucifixion was a wrongful punishment for a trial based on charges of "blaspheming the Holy Spirit'' and should be corrected by modern law.

My laughter at the complete absurdity of it all stopped suddenly when I read this justification for the court action:

"Jesus was lynched by Jewish mobs. That was illegal. It was abuse of office, malicious prosecution, fabrication of evidence, judicial misconduct and goes against the principle of natural justice.''

So, once again, literalist religious fundamentalism leads us back on the murderous path of anti-Semitism. Now, what was Christopher Hitchens saying?

Hat tip Gill not Will

2 comments:

Matt M said...

Given that Jesus was (apparently) sent here to die in order to earn us forgiveness for our sinful ways, wouldn't God have to be an accessory to this miscarriage of justice?

Anonymous said...

Another way of looking at this...if it's the case that big J was done in by 'The Jews' then they deserve our eternal thanks for killing that Jesus bloke. Someone had to do the bugger in!