Justice can't be done in secret. And here's why

We will always try to twist the evidence to fit our theories.
Especially when we are wrong.

Why do people refuse to accept what simply has to be true? Social psychologists use a term to describe this behaviour that you may have come across - it is called cognitive dissonance. This is the tension that arises when a person holds two attitudes that are psychologically inconsistent. And it is tension that is hard to live with, tension that simply has to be resolved.

So what do you do? A brilliant new book by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson - Mistakes Were Made, but not by Me - explains. You believe that you are a good person, say, yet you know you have done a bad thing. There is dissonance. You resolve it by deciding that the bad thing was not that bad. The worse your behaviour, the harder you will try to twist it around in your head until you can reconcile it with your view of yourself.

It is commonly thought that we have theories and that they are tested by the facts. The opposite is true. We have theories and then we strive mightily to fit the facts into them, ignoring those that don't quite work or reinterpreting them if we have to. The more we have at stake emotionally, the more pressing this task becomes.

Cognitive disssonance explains a great deal. Take Gordon Brown. Some people believe that all the strife, all the difficulties he is encountering may lead him to give up. Cognitive dissonance suggests that the more trouble he is in, the more difficult things get, the harder he will work to convince himself that it is all worthwhile and that he is indispensable. His troubles make him less likely to resign, not more.

When groups - police, medics, politicians, social workers, the Family Court apparatus - get together, convinced of their own righteousness, the facts (like Timothy Evans) can go hang. They are certain that they are right, certain they are just and often, you know, they really are. But when they are not, they will never ever admit it, digging themselves in more and more deeply.

There's only one way out. That is to allow others, those without a stake in the righteousness of anyone, to shine a light on proceedings. Not to do so is inexcusable. It is an affront to justice and the rule of law.

Read the full article at times online (this is just an excerpt)