Can mercy and justice co-exist?
Firstly, I'll like to define the two issues of discussion, mercy and justice. Mercy is taking into consideration the circumstances of a situation that a person was in when he commits a mistake, giving him a lesser punishment, ultimately forgiving him. Justice involves following the law by the book, punishing one for his acts which are considered wrong by the law. Many tend to put mercy and justice as two separate issues, claiming that they cannot co-exist which each other simply because of the reason that if mercy is taken into consideration, justice would not have been done. However, I beg to differ.
Justice is definitely a very subjective term. Justice can be deemed either as having a person pay for his crime fully, and get his due punishment in full. In other words, "an eye for an eye". However, justice can also hold the meaning that a person has learnt his lesson, and "peace is restored". A concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, fairness, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics, according to wikipedia. In the case of the latter, it already seems that mercy and justice already co exist in defining justice.
If we take the definition of justice to be the former, justice would not be able to coexist with mercy as mercy lightens the severity of justice, ultimately returning a "blind eye" for an eye.
However, definitions are different from reality. In our society, justice can definitely co exist with mercy, under certain circumstances. There are definitely acts which we are able to forgive, take for example the incident which happened in China not too long ago. A chinese mother was sentenced to 5 years for killing her two twin sons. Now, why was she only sentenced to 5 years for murder? She was given a lighter sentence due to her circumstances where both her twin sons had cerebral palsy, leading to her not being in a clear state of mind. Thus, mercy was given and she was given a lighter sentence.
Even in Singapore, mercy is definitely taken into consideration. A person is allowed to submit a medical report to prove if they were in a clear state of mind when committing and crime, and thus receiving a lesser punishment. That does not mean that they do not learn their lesson as they would still receive punishment, go to jail and repent on their mistakes.
However, there are circumstances where mercy and justice cannot co-exist. For example, Osama, former leader of terrorist group Al-Qaeda was killed on the spot when the American soldiers approached him, not giving him a single chance to explain himself or even stepping on American soil(he was dumped into the sea). When someone commits a grave crime which involves mass murder, it is definitely not possible to take mercy on him.
In conclusion, mercy can co-exist with justice, but only under certain circumstances.
