AI Says...
“Justice is the first of freedoms.”— Robert Badinter
I. Subtle Struggles in Liberal Democracies
The great battles of the 20th century — women’s rights, the abolition of the death penalty, judicial independence, freedom of expression — have shaped modern liberal democracies. Yet as these achievements solidify, new and more subtle struggles have emerged, born of the world’s growing complexity.
These struggles are no longer fought only in courtrooms or on the streets but within consciences, networks, and language itself. They concern real equality, minority protection, institutional transparency, regulation of digital giants, and the preservation of the climate. They are battles where law, morality, and technology intertwine.
“Justice is not only respect for the law; it is respect for human beings.”— Robert Badinter
Thus, climate justice, digital rights, the fight against algorithmic discrimination, and online harassment have become the new battlegrounds of an evolving democratic conscience.These are subtle struggles because they require clarity and discernment: they often pit one liberty against another — freedom of expression versus dignity, economic freedom versus social equality, security versus privacy.
They also reveal internal fractures within democracies: societies that express sincere indignation yet exhaust themselves through overexposure and selective outrage.Justice, as Badinter often said, “is never a given.” It must adapt to new forms of domination — invisible, technological, and cultural.
II. Unworthy Struggles in Autocracies
While democracies refine their moral compass, other peoples still fight for rights long taken for granted elsewhere.In Russia, protesting against war is a crime. In Iran, the veil has become an instrument of oppression and death. In Egypt, judicial independence is a façade, with prisons full of journalists and dissidents. In China, the courts obey the Party. In India, religious minorities face two-tiered justice. In Algeria, peaceful assembly or a critical post can lead to arrest.
“There can be no justice without liberty, nor liberty without justice.”— Robert Badinter
These are called unworthy struggles — not because those who lead them lack worth, but because the regimes they face demean their dignity.In these states, judges are silenced, lawyers threatened, journalists condemned for doing their job.When the state confuses justice with revenge, when prison becomes a political tool, humanity itself regresses.
Young Iranian women burning their veils at the risk of death, Russian journalists fleeing exile to tell the truth, Algerian demonstrators imprisoned for peaceful marches — these are the faces of human dignity defying the indignity of power.
III. Crude Regressions in Weary Democracies
What is most disturbing, however, is that even established democracies sometimes lapse into crude regressions.In the United States under Donald Trump, the executive sought to subjugate the judiciary, to pressure judges, to weaponize the Justice Department against political opponents. Journalists were forced to resign, media outlets were threatened, editorial lines dictated from the White House.These were crude regressions — for they struck at the very pillars of democracy.
“When politics seizes justice, freedom retreats.”— Robert Badinter
In Hungary and Turkey, governments have also subdued judges and the press. Even in France, certain populist or security-driven tendencies remind us how fragile public freedoms truly are.One does not need a dictatorship for justice to erode; sometimes indifference, cynicism, or fear is enough.
IV. Vigilance — The Ultimate Democratic Virtue
Robert Badinter never ceased to remind us: justice is a daily struggle. It demands courage, reason, and memory.Democracies do not die overnight; they crumble slowly — through complacency toward injustice, silence in the face of humiliation, and the abandonment of truth.
“One must always choose the side of justice, even when it is in the minority.”— Robert Badinter
In a world saturated with information and where truth has become relative, civic vigilance is the new form of resistance.That is today’s subtle struggle: the refusal to normalize lies and to surrender to resignation.
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