In secular countries, religion does not play a role in the governing of society. Instead, that role is fulfilled by institutions of a non-religious nature. Government departments and agencies create and implement man-made laws. The rule of law is upheld by law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, who form the last line of defence and the foundation of the rule of law and order.
But what happens when the very institutions assigned to the duty of upholding the laws suffer corruption? When the institutions that were created to uphold the law, break it themselves?
The Judge and the Billionaire
In the United States, the highest court of the land is the Supreme Court. The judges are the decision makers and their conduct is held to the highest standards, and rightly so. If the judiciary is corrupted, then the entire justice system is brought into disrepute. How can the courts enforce the laws when they are the ones who are breaking it themselves?
This is why the case of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of the US Supreme Court is so interesting. On the 6th of April 2023, ProPublic, a non-profit newsroom that investigates abuses of power, published a shocking article titled “Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire”.
The article set out the relationship between Justice Thomas and US billionaire Harlan Crow, a donor of the US Republican Party. It details decades of luxury gifts that were given to Justice Thomas including annual holidays, flights aboard his private jet and yacht, and how virtually every year, Thomas has accepted luxury trips without disclosing them. These trips do not appear anywhere in his financial disclosures.
What was behind Justice Thomas’ decision not to disclose these trips, even once over the past decades? No formal charges of wrongdoing have been proven at this time. However, the accusations were serious enough to lead Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to introduce articles of impeachment against Judges Thomas and fellow conservative supreme court justice Samuel Alito, for failure to provide such disclosures.
Clarence Thomas is not the first judge to face accusations of improper conduct. In 2019, Texas District Judge Rodolfo Delgado, was convicted of one count of conspiring, three counts of Federal Program Bribery, three counts of Travel Act Bribery, and one count of Obstruction of Justice.
During the investigation by the FBI, it was found that the judge had, in addition to other misdeeds, been accepting bribes for agreeing to release three clients of an attorney on bond in cases pending before his court. The numbers involved are surprisingly low. The first two bribes totaled $520 and the third $5,500. He also attempted to obstruct justice when he learned of the police investigation by contacting the attorney and providing a false story about how the payments themselves.
The Corruption of the Anti-Mafia
In an article titled ‘The rise and fall of an anti-mafia hero”, we learned about the case of former judge Silvana Saguto who was found guilty of corruption. She began her career in 1981 and became an icon for the role she played in 1986–1992 Maxi-Trial investigating Cosa Nostra, during which she sentenced the Corleonesi mafia clan boss, Totò Riina, to life imprisonment.
She later became the president of the Department of Preventative Measures, a special court with the power to assign persons to temporarily manage property and other assets seized from the mafia. Through a web of family ties and acquaintances, Saguto was able to assign confiscated assets to a group of people in exchange for money, favours and gifts.
The extent of Saguto’s misdeeds did not stop there. She was able to use corrupt law enforcement individuals to start investigations into legitimate entrepreneurs with a view to seizing and diverting their assets and businesses worth millions of euros. Those asserts were returned to the individuals once she was removed from office, but the companies were stripped of their value as a result of years of mismanagement and wrongdoing by the administrators.
What has been surprising in this case is that Saguto was supposed to be part of the so-called anti-mafia. However, her exposure reveals that even the judiciary is not immune to such corruption.
Bribes as a Way of Life
A report published by the Premium Times on 1st March 2024 titled “Corruption in Nigerian Judiciary is extensive-UNODC”, set out some of the challenges facing the Nigerian judiciary. It quoted the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes as saying that corruption is prevalent in the Nigerian judiciary and that 20 per cent of those who had contact with the judiciary, were confronted with a request for the payment of a bribe. A comparative 2020 study referenced in the article mentioned that both male and female judges were party to such behaviour though, males were far more likely.
Other accusations include the abuse of the principle of judicial precedent. That is, where the lower courts follow the rulings of the higher courts. The article quotes a former member of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, who says that you can see five different decisions of the Supreme Court all on one issue that are contradictory.
Corruption in Numbers
The corruption of the judiciary clearly garners headlines. However, such cases are not as commonly heard in the media as is that of corruption of law enforcement agencies. Corruption of law enforcement agencies is a global phenomenon and one that has been documented by the World Metrics Org. There is a general picture of corrupt conduct and poor public perception. Some of the statistics they offer are as follows:
"In 2020, the number of police officers arrested in the United States for corruption-related offenses was 1,175."
"According to Transparency International, 24% of respondents claimed to have paid a bribe to police in the previous 12 months in a global survey."
"According to Human Rights Watch, corrupt police committed 2,300 documented extrajudicial killings between 1988 and 2002 in Nigeria."
"In 2019, Serbia saw 69 convictions related to police corruption."
"More than half (51%) of Romanians believe that the public police force is the most corrupt institution in the country, according to a 2018 survey."
The numbers around the world are shocking and vary greatly. The question is what amount of corruption is acceptable? In the context of the role of law enforcement, this number should be nothing more than zero.
Where do we go from here?
It is clear that there is corruption in many, if not all, levels of law enforcement across the world.
That the last line of defence has potentially been compromised in such a way, and at the highest level of law, is a shocking indictment of the level of corruption in the End Times.
It brings us back to a quote of Ahmed Al-Hassan:
“For me it represented the corruption of salt for everything corrupted can be fixed by salt but what if the salt goes bad?" - Imam Ahmed Al Hassan, Sermon of the Story of Meeting Imam Al-Mahdi a.s.
Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan spoke these words when describing the situation of the non-working scholars of religion. Those who were entrusted with the religion, to safeguard it for the weak, but instead abandoned their duty. Choosing instead to pursue the material desires of worldly life. Forsaking those entrusted to their care. Instead, leaving them to the wolves.
Based on the evidence? The conduct of the judiciary is no different to that of the non-working scholars.
So corrupt!