Justiça e Verdade

Not having the possibility of knowing the truth with certainty, but being unable not to punish conducts incompatible with civil coexistence, any collectivity, even in different historical moments or in different latitudes of political geography, has prepared the method deemed least imperfect for ascertaining past events and judge them. A method, moreover, which must not only respond to the most accredited epistemological tools of the moment, but which must also respect fundamental values which, in the given historical-cultural moment, the people in whose name justice is administered considers more valuable than ascertaining the truth (e.g.: respect for the dignity of the person under investigation; in dubio pro reo; guarantee professional or religious secrecy). For these characteristics, justice, unlike all other state functions (economic, foreign, social, health policy), must be evaluated not for the result, but for compliance with the rules set up for its exercise. In conclusion, it must certainly be recognized that the bridge of the criminal procedure is inevitably shabby and shaky, as long as one never forgets that without this bridge opens up the abyss of totalitarianisms, of the justice of the strongest, of the diktats of the majority of the moment, of the rules imposed by the oppressive state religion, by private revenge or by gangs.