Regarding the 11th of March train bombings in Madrid, colloquially (read: spanish-ly) known as 11-m, what is the ‘outcome’ of justice? The New York Times titled its leading article 7 Are Acquitted in Madrid Bombings while the Washington Post titled its piece 3 Guilty of Mass Murder in Madrid Attack. What are the different discourses here? While the former article focuses on certain miscarriages of justice, the post recounts what justice has been served. First of all, it is hardly clear whether those acquitted deserved punishment or not - the evidence against certain accused was circumstantial at best.
Perhaps this ‘justice’ reflects the true makeup of the terrorist operation - that there are some unmistakably involved in the planning and actions, but others only involved in minor operations. While it clear that those who are directly responsible for the loss of life should face justice, what about those further from the crime? Did they even know what they were involved in?
My point here is that we should hardly evaluate justice on its ability to distribute punishment, anger, and taxes. Justice is way too hard to define, and I do not believe that either the number of punished or acquitted is an appropriate metric. Then again, how good a metric are the 191 killed in these attacks?
Update: if you read Spanish, look here for an El País graphic on the sentencing.
