In civilized societies, justice is dispensed by judges and the courts.

No one else. Not by governments or oppositions. Not by parties or ministers. Not by protesters or viewers. Not by relatives and friends.

Even when it’s political figures being judged, it’s the judiciary that ultimately passes sentence. Parliament simply conducts the preliminary inquiry.

Which is how it should be. Justice is part of a social contract that allows the members of a community to coexist and settle their disputes.

Because, if people take the law into their own hands to right a real or supposed wrong, they not only lose their own moral superiority, they put social harmony and cohesion at risk. The Wild West isn’t a model anyone should aspire to.

These are self-evident facts that we, unfortunately, need reminding of.

And which are back in the news due to the Tempe case, but also to recent instances of vigilante justice committed against the perpetrators of violent crimes that have (rightly) angered us.

Obviously, justice cannot always satisfy everyone involved. Not even the majority opinion. No one says it has to conduct opinion polls to gain insights into “public sentiment”, whatever that may be. Which is why its judgments are always accepted, as a matter of principle, whether everyone likes them or not.

After all, a judicial decision does not necessarily meet with the approval of the accusers and defendants, interested parties and public opinion.

That’s why justice is administered at different levels and by different courts: to reduce the margin for error that is always going to exist. Because we are, after all, only human.

In the Tempe case, the judicial investigation has been exhaustive. Questions, interviews, research, expert opinions, witnesses and a good many (over forty) prosecutions.

Has it taken too long? Probably. Although with a case-file tens of thousands of pages long and the technical difficulties involved, the case could hardly have been concluded sooner.

But now we have reached a point of no return; time has run out.

Justice must be delivered on Tempe before justice itself suffers as a result. We’re not, of course, demanding that the court come down either one way or the other—only the deranged would ask for such a thing…

But that it protects that social coherence that is guaranteed by justice.

There is no doubt, of course, that Tempe have been swept up into the current political antagonisms, which makes the sober administration of justice more difficult.

But there is no other way. And nor can there ever be.