I recently attended a hearing that summarized in a few minutes what Pierre Bourdieu defined as “the symbolic power of the legal field.”
A public defender and a person with a disability. In theory, a place of protection and representation. In practice, a demonstration of institutional ego.
The defense attorney claimed the floor and sought recognition from her superior.
Between technical details, anecdotes about his career and phrases of self-praise, he forgot the most important thing: his client didn’t understand a single word.
The woman who was supposed to feel protected left the room more uncertain than the woman she entered with.
Bourdieu explained that law is a field with its own rituals, hierarchies and symbols. But in reality, formality without empathy is a sophisticated form of social distance. When language becomes inaccessible to those who should understand it, it ceases to be an instrument of justice and becomes an elegant form of exclusion.
Authoritarians don’t like that
The practice of professional and critical journalism is a mainstay of democracy. That is why it bothers those who believe that they are the owners of the truth.
In the legal field, many people confuse duty with recognition. And so the call to service is diluted between protocol greetings and solemn jargon.
The institutional ego feeds on its own reflection: the more formal, the more important; The more inaccessible, the more legitimate.
But this reflection does not bring back justice, but rather emptiness.
The defendant – the real person, with fear, with history, with humanity – is left out. He hears words he doesn’t understand, sees gestures that don’t belong to him, and signs documents he can barely read.
The system talks about him, but not to him.
The paradox is painful: the law created to protect sometimes becomes a system that creates a distance between the citizen and his rights.
I write this from the conviction that
In contrast, every time the institutional ego is put on display, for me it confirms the need to exercise law from a different place: more human, clearer, more honest.
The examples that teach us the most are the ones we never wanted.
For this reason, I can only thank those who act from the institutional ego.
Because his way of dispensing justice reminds me every day that true power lies not in the title or the jargon, but in the ability to look into the eyes of those who trust us.
Dr. Yasmín Ailén Ruiz González
Attorney – MP 1-40660
MF. T 508 F 434
Ig: @universolegal.ok
3517605615
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