We’ve put quite a lot of attention to human rights and legal rights in our state in the past couple of decades and no one sensitive to injustice would describe that as a negative.
In our age of rapid access to information, it might surprise a lot of citizens walking around in California USA, that they aren’t as “protected” from injustice usually seen in the 3rd World as they have been lulled into believing.
The subject and topic of sworn statements in the legal arena comes to the forefront when I think of how unprotected our average citizen really is.
I believe most of us grow up being taught that an oath is sacred and that,even if we don’t believe in a heavenly penalty for being untruthful,that there is a price to pay for the damage having an “inability” to be truthful causes.
Most of us are unaware that anyone can walk into a courthouse and file a legal action against anyone without so much evidence as a sworn statement -we are totally at the “mercy” of the oath,made under penalty of perjury, that the statements are the truth.
Think about that for a moment and you recognize that,in our age when honor,ethics,and character are not placed as high as they once were, your life is really open to destruction based on how low the requirements are to open a criminal case against you.
In other countries in fact,before someone can file a charge against you, they are made to produce some evidence, aside from simply their sworn declaration, that a reasonable person would believe warrants a case to go forward,regrettably not so in our legal system.
In other countries there is a steep penalty or cost to bringing a person into court using false statements -not so in our legal system regrettably.
The use of restraining orders are perfect examples of how easy we’ve made it for the unethical to wreak innocent lives and cause massive damage.
Anybody,and I mean anybody, can simply walk into a courthouse, give the clerk a statement,made under oath, and a judge will in most cases grant what’s known as a temporary restraining order on the spot with a date to come back perhaps in a month or more.
During that time period, any one of us can be evicted from our homes, lose the ability to work,be separated from our children and a whole host of other damage that you would think happens under dictatorships.In short, the damage is inflicted based on a sworn statement with little to zero facts required at the time of filing.
Somewhere along the way we,in California allowed this hole in our legal system to be created and it’s created a nightmare in our democracy where so many have and will continue to be falsely accused and damaged.
Our courts are packed 355 days a year and I fully believe that if we raised the conditions of making the claims higher,if we handed out actual penalties for false claims,then we would see less innocent businesses and people damaged and a much less crowded court system.
Peter Shulman
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