A Letter
1.2 [XIII 460]
A LETTER3
I hasten to inform you, dear friend, of an event that occurred in the house where I live and that will show you how perfectly right I have been when I so frequently declared that there is no reliable legal system here in our country and that our most sacred personal rights are stripped of every guarantee. I can almost rejoice in this fact, for it finally must open the eyes of these crass lawyers who always speak as if among us there were a well-ordered judicial administration, a secure legal system. Righteous heavens! A secure legal system where such a thing can happen! Can any man in all honesty maintain this? It really is high time that someone rises up in protest against this; it is high time to show that this old fable about Denmark’s having such an excellent legal system is only a fable. I know well that many good-natured, superstitious people of most varied classes have believed this for many years, but what is there that such people do not believe? So it goes with this as with so much else that is also presented as good and worthy of imitation here in our country but vanishes upon closer inspection, for one thing is always lacking: the great guaranteeing forms, those all-securing norms of law, the first and only condition for our most sacred rights, without which guarantees everything else counts as nothing. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that this superstition, which has prevailed in this country so long, be eradicated; this is doubly necessary since it can find far too much sustenance by trafficking in names like Stampe,4 Colbjørnsen,5 and Ørsted,6 these [XIII 461] no doubt intrinsically estimable men, but nevertheless, no one will assert that they have done anything worth mentioning to protect the personal security of citizens and the legal system here in our country. Consequently, this dangerous misconception that an excellent legal system exists here in the kingdom ought to be and must be eradicated. It is a cause around which all good citizens ought to unite; it is a genuine natural concern. Everyone who is well intentioned toward the oppressed ought to make his contribution toward eradicating this pernicious superstition. The more widely he can publicize this beneficial truth, the further he can reach down with this throughout the people, the more thoroughly he can destroy in the simple, unenlightened man this disastrous notion that there exists a good legal system in the country, the greater will be his service. Do not fear the consequences of this; do not speak of the danger of enlightening people on certain points. This, too, is part and parcel of the superstition that has to be eradicated. Believe me, my friend, truthful, correct information can never be anything but beneficial, and in order to publicize it, I consider it extremely important that a small, but very typical, contribution to a description of our legal system, something that occurred here recently, become as well known as possible.
This is the story. In the same building in which I live, there is a merchant by the name of Poulsen. The day before yesterday, he sends his servant to the bank to withdraw 1,000 rix-dollars.7 My servant, who is together with him a great deal, goes along with him, and they leave the bank together. On the way home they stop at a restaurant run by a man named Ulrichsen, and there they meet two other acquaintances and have a schnaps and sandwich. Poulsen’s servant takes out his billfold containing the 1,000 rix-dollars and pays for the lunch. There is comment about his carrying so much money. All four of them leave together, but immediately afterward my servant leaves them, while the other two accompany Poulsen’s servant home, go up to his room with him, and spend a half-hour there while he shaves and in the meantime takes off his coat with the billfold in it and hangs it on a chair. When he goes down to his master and puts his hand in his pocket, the billfold is gone. You can imagine his shock! What is he to think? What should he do? He searches his room; no billfold to be found. He runs to Ulrichsen’s restaurant; he searches every nook and corner—no billfold! His employer does what any one of us most likely would have done, he reports [XIII 462] the matter to the police. But what do the police do? Would you believe it possible? Can you imagine anything more irresponsible? Can you visualize a more indefensible toying with the legal system, a more corrupt use of legal power? A criminal investigation is held on the matter. My servant, the two other servants, the restaurant owner Ulrichsen, all are required to meet to give evidence to the appropriate police-court judge concerning any information they might have in the case. The hearings are fruitless, and for good reason. On the evening of the interrogation, when Poulsen’s servant is undressing, he finds the billfold, with all the money, which had slipped through a hole in the lining of his coat. “Can something like this,” I justifiably ask, “happen in any other civilized country where there is any guarantee of personal rights? Is this a legal climate to be desired, one in which a criminal interrogation is made although there is not a shred of evidence that any offense, to say nothing of a crime, has taken place? Cannot this legal system be called totally devoid of guarantees, and cannot men’s most sacred rights be said to be improperly safeguarded in any sense, when a high-ranking person’s unverified and, as we learn, unverifiable and unjust charge is sufficient to bring down upon a poor, simple man a criminal interrogation with all its consequences? And yet we are supposed to listen to big Danish lawyers and their parrots saying that we have a desirable legal system. We are forced to believe that such persons either do not know what a well-ordered legal system is or that they are speaking contrary to their better judgment.”