Striking a Natural Note: A New State of Mind in the Administration
of Justice, I, II, III
by Wilson Ballard
Overview
The course, “The Administration of Justice in Bahá’í
Communities” uses domestic violence as the concrete example for
appreciating the Justice Bahá’ú’lláh
intends His Institutions to bring to the world, and for learning how
we are to play our vital roles in this process, whether as individual
community members, as members of an Assembly, or as members of an Assembly
committee involved with justice administration. The course material
includes the Universal House of Justice's letter on domestic violence
dated 24 January 1993, relevant civil law from an example state (Texas),
and guidance from the Developing Distinctive Bahá’í
Communities manual. Participants work case studies to practice how to
apply the relevant principles. The course takes one full day.
Additional information:
“The Administration of Justice in Bahá’í Communities”
is good to offer to assembly members, members of committees that help
an assembly with justice administration, and the community in general.
Its impact shows in
1. a much more positive attitude
toward this aspect of assembly work, with Bahá’í
Law issues seen as a natural part of consolidation and therefore a good
expenditure of time for an assembly conscious that teaching is its first
responsibility,
2. a fairer and more orderly process,
and
3. focused effort by the assembly
to modify the temperament with which it expresses authority. Assemblies
come to consciously adopt a goal to express authority with “love,
humility, and a genuine respect for others,” so that it “strikes
a natural note and accords with that which is acceptable to spiritually
attuned and fair minded souls.” This temperament of expression
has ramifications beyond issues of justice administration — it
is at the heart of the relationship between a community and the Assembly.
It allows us to feel that the assemblies are a part of ourselves. For
small communities that face 2 or 3 cases of Bahá’í
Law each year and do not have a specialized personal status committee,
the course seems to have a positive impact if the secretary and two
other prominent assembly members take it. These are communities that
handle Bahá’í Law issues by tabling most of the rest
of their agendas until the issue is handled. These communities often
do pretty well with issues in this way, even without training, provided
that they don't evade them instead.
As communities grow larger the need for the course grows, because without
training they tend to give justice administration less and less attention.
The factors that lead to this situation include:
1. With growth, assemblies no longer
have regular agendas that can simply be tabled while one issue is given
prolonged deliberate attention.
2. They also face more cases.
3. Without training, experience with
delegating some of the justice administration work to committees is
often disappointing. A common reason is that a committee is unlikely
to receive and understand a mandate clearly enough to know how far it
should go with an issue, and where to stop so that it does not assume
responsibility that an Assembly should not delegate. So Assemblies end
up feeling that their committee has not gone far enough, or gone too
far, or are even divided about whether it has gone far enough or too
far.
The result is that the Assemblies take the responsibility back from
committees, and attempt to expedite the justice work from among their
own membership. Commonly they delegate an issue (or all issues) to individual
assembly members with the understanding that the individuals will consult
with the Assembly on an as-needed basis. As the community grows, the
Assembly allows less and less time for “as-needed” interruptions
to its regular agenda for justice issues. At the same time the number
of justice issues grows. Understandably the quality of administration
of these issues gets less and less predictable, and more and more justice
issues end up being ignored.
Outline
Part 1: Appreciating Bahá’í
Justice (Quotations from Bahá’ú’lláh)
Part 2: Bahá’í
Justice With Respect to a Current Social Issue — Domestic Violence
(From 24 January 1993 letter of the Universal House of Justice)
Part 3: The Administration of Justice
— The Role of the Individual (Includes working and presenting case
studies to learn to apply the concepts) Presentation of a graphic regarding
the inputs and outputs of consultation
Part 4: The Administration of Justice
- Initial Assembly Steps
Part 5. The Temperament of Authority
in the Administration of Justice (Includes working and presenting case
studies to learn to apply the concepts)
Part 6: The Administration of Justice
- Additional Miscellaneous Topics (Including issues related to the decision
of the Assembly, what to do when issues involve Assembly members, the
appeal process, and the "atmosphere of tolerance, understanding, forbearance,
and active kindness which should be the hallmark of a Bahá’í
community")
Supplemental materials include:
1. Appendix — Toward a Deeper Understanding of Domestic
Violence
2. Outline for Facilitators
3. Cases to use with this course
Contact Information: Wilson Ballard
E-mail: WilsonB@PanAm.edu
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Striking
a Natural Note: A New State of Mind in the Administration of
Justice, I, II, III (Supplemental Materials)
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