There are Biblical commandments that exhort those who follow such precepts to not sell or pervert justice. Proper justice demands that there are no thumbs on the scales of justice, there should be no twisting of justice in order to benefit either the rich or the poor but instead justice should treat all people equally.

The justice system has not always lived up to this ideal of unbiased justice, as any perusal of the history of stuff like the aftermath of the Monmouth Rebellion or the more recent cases of miscarriages of justice will tell you. But the justice system should at least try to be impartial.

In the case of Hussein Alinzi, a Muslim man who beat his 15 year old daughter with a metal bar because he suspected that she was seeing a boy and who walked free from court with a suspended sentence, have a prime example of there being a thumb on the scales of justice and justice not being impartial. Anybody else who had not only assaulted their daughter with a metal bar but had also had subjected them to a two year campaign of abuse, which included threats to kill, would be subjected to an immediate custodial sentence. These are serious offences not just of violence but of the sort of intra familial violence that is often difficult for victims, especially victims who are minors, to escape from. This is not the sort of crime that should attract a community based penalty.

The Sun said:

A VIOLENT dad-of-seven who battered his daughter outside school with a metal bar for wearing make up has walked free from court.

Hussein Alinzi, 59, attacked the 15-year-old as she prepared to take an English GCSE exam at Whalley Range 11-18 High School in Manchester.

The dad accused his daughter of secretly planning to a meet a boy ahead of the exam and for wearing make up.

It later emerged the girl had only been wearing cosmetics to cover up existing bruises Alinzi had inflicted on her.

She later told how her dad had subjected her to a two-year campaign of abuse where he threatened to run her over and told her: “I hope you die”.

Alinzi avoided jail at Manchester Crown Court after he admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He was instead handed an eight month prison sentence suspended for 18 months after the girl, now 16, gave an emotional courtroom plea.

I know I can be cynical but I do wonder how ‘voluntary’ the plea for mercy submitted to the court really was. If it’s genuine then fine but it reads like the sort of thing that a family from a patriarchal culture would submit in order to get their familial patriarch out of one of His Majesty’s Prisons.

The ludicrously lenient sentence imposed on Alinzi is so inappropriate that it will encourage people to believe that this savage bastard has been given a lower grade of sentence primarily because he’s Muslim. If that is the case then this is wrong as the justice system should be blind to such matters as religion or community. What should matter in sentencing is the crime that is committed and any previous record of law breaking. This bastard Alinzi committed a great wrong against his daughter following a horrific campaign of abuse against her yet has walked from court without any proper punishment. I know that some will say that the letter sent to the court by his victim asking for mercy for her father will have made an impact on the judge and of course they may be correct. However even with justice tempered by mercy in this case the outcome should still have been a period in custody. This is because this attack on his daughter was not Alinzi’s first rodeo. He attacked his daughter before and it turned out that the make up she was wearing was not worn in order to attract boys, but to cover up the bruises and other injuries that Alinzi had given her.

There’s no way on this earth that Alinzi should have walked, there should have been some immediate custodial element to the disposal of this case, even if it was only 28 days, in order that a message is sent to society that hitting your kids with a metal bar is not acceptable. But, with the extreme leniency of this sentence imposed on Alinzi all that has happened is that more and more people lose trust and faith with the justice system. A justice system that is lenient to members of one group and overly harsh to those from other groups is not one that is working without bent scales. Justice should be honest and impartial and there will be many who will suspect that this has not been the case regarding Alinzi. Where there is dishonest justice then there is no actual justice.