If mercy requires a departure from strict justice, it is calling for injustice, a vice; if mercy never requires a departure from strict justice, it is then merely a part of justice , The purpose of this paper is to analyse charges on mercy.
Murphy describes mercy as “As a moral virtue, mercy derives its value at least in part from the fact that it flows from a certain state of character - a character disposed to perform merciful acts from love or compassion while not losing sight of the importance of justice.”
It is a principle of justice that a judge has a prima-facie duty to be dispassionate ,to avoid being influenced by feelings they might have towards the litigants before them. A judge motivated by justice alone will therefore tend to set aside feelings of compassion.Mercy and justice, considered as states of character, are thus quite distinct.
A sense of empathy could let a judge know what sort of suffering particular penalty will cause to that convict. But empathy for the suffering of another is compassion and compassion .when it motivates its subject to leniency, is mercy
Merely being merciful as judge will have just a tangent touched to the projectile motion of justice, and for sure we aren’t expecting mercy or justice . A judgment which is just, fair and reasonable
Justice not always mean like Aristotle’s paradigm of friendship. Where one of the friend in name of justice ask for the gift which he receives must be equivalent to the gift he gave. It is thus at least conceivable that mercy may function like that .
Before coming to the main question. Firstly let try to figure out, is the person who is a convict should be allowed for mercy petition?
The answer in one word is “YES”, to what extend is supplementary question . In India the capital punishment is awarded to a person who’s act is not only an offence which is covered in the law but also rarest of rare in nature . For instances , in case of Nirbhaya 2012 , ever since beginning all the accused were guilty of an offence which was rarest of rare in India that point of time . As a result from trail court to the supreme court the judgement was never changed or even altered. Should those convict’s mercy plea be entertained and is the president a correct authority for all kind of mercy plea?