The world is changing. Political decisions should too.

Two weeks ago the Judiciary Power of Spain came out with the final sentence for the leaders of the Catalan independence movement that started some years ago. After having some of the leaders in “preventive prison” for 2 years they got them out and a few months after put them sentences that will condition their lives forever.

Combined the politicians involved got 100 years in prison with Oriol Junqueras, the leader getting 13 years. This decision provoked a huge social protest and unfortunately it brought a lot of violence to the streets. The radical independents came out and use this situation to create harm and do things that are not typical of the Catalan society. However, this article is not about what happened but why it happened.

I define isolated decisions as decisions that are taken ignoring the context and the consequences of them. Yes, we should follow and punish accordingly to what the law says. But, we should factor in also the context in which these decisions need to be made. We live in a world where empathy, social sensibility is as important as executing on laws. We live in a world where you can’t put a huge sentence of prison and expect everything to be alright. The problem of making judiciary decisions without taking account the context is that it undermines its own purpose, which is achieving justice.

Justice or injustice is something that has to be rationalized. We need to be able to understand and rationally say: “I see why this makes sense and is fair”. However, if a decision can’t be rationalized by people is very hard to see it as fair. And very easy to see it as unfair. You put in prison a politician for an illegal act for 13 years while someone that murders another person gets between 10–15 years, what are you saying to the people? How do you expect people to react?

The decision you take matters but the impact it has does too. And this is something that governments, politicians and judiciary systems need to really understand and held accountable for. Justice goes far beyond what a law book states and

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