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Good morning. For 28 years the families of the 96 people who died as a result of the Hillsborough tragedy have fought to have those responsible brought to trial. Their persistence in wanting the truth to come out and justice done, has been remarkable. It is yet another witness to how deep seated the desire for justice is in the human psyche. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not fair鈥 is one of the earliest complaints of young children, and every ancient civilisation has a system of justice in one form or another. Together with this there has been a recognition that human justice is inevitably limited and partial, and indeed may be absent altogether, so their religions looked to some form of ultimate justice. In ancient Egypt for example there was the idea of every soul being weighed at death. The heart was placed on one scale, a feather, representing truth and justice on the other. In the Hebrew Scriptures this conviction that truth must come out and justice done is the most urgent and heartfelt passion of all. It is bound up with the very existence of God and his character. If there is a just God why do the wicked get away with it, why is justice denied? That is the charge Job and others made-made to the face of God himself. The belief in an after life that grew up was not so much about individuals wanting to live on after death but about the vindication of God himself. Whether in time or beyond it, he would act to put right everything that was wrong-that was their hope and claim. As Pope John Paul II鈥檚 encyclical Libertatis Conscientia put it True justice must include everyone; it must bring the answer to the immense load of suffering born by all the generations; 鈥he promise of the resurrection is freely made to meet the desire for true justice dwelling in the human heart. Meanwhile, limited and partial though our human systems are, we have to strive to make them as fair as is humanly possible. We can be grateful that we have a criminal justice system that recognises this imperative, and that when it falls short, as it does, it can be corrected. We can be grateful that we have a system in which judges are amongst our most trusted professions, trusted by 81% of the population. 28 years is far too long to wait-but the perseverance and persistence of the victims and the final recognition of their case by our criminal justice system is a witness to something absolutely essential to our life together.
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