In a move that can only be described as the judicial equivalent of a toddler refusing to share his crayons, a Serbian court has jailed the parents of a teenage school shooter. The retrial, dripping with the exquisite fury of a justice system that has clearly had its cornflakes pissed in, has decided that mum and dad are somehow responsible for little Johnny's trigger-happy rampage. Because, of course, the apple never falls far from the gun cabinet.
Let us paint the scene. A boy, let's call him 'Kaczy' because 'Kaczy' sounds like the noise a malfunctioning video game might make, decides that his classmates' algebra grades warrant a violent audit. He borrows daddy's firearm, conveniently left in a drawer that presumably had a sign reading 'For Emergency School Shooting Only.' He then proceeds to do what teenage idiots do best: make a spectacularly poor life choice. And the state, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the correct response is to lock up the parents. Because, apparently, the crime is not the shooting itself but the failure to properly secure the familial arsenal.
Now, I am not defending these parents. Perhaps they were negligent. Perhaps they left the gun lying around like a discarded sock. Perhaps they should have noticed their son was stockpiling ammunition and writing manifestos in Comic Sans. But to jail them? In a retrial that reeks of a system trying to retroactively find someone, anyone, to punish? This is not justice. This is the state playing pin the tail on the scapegoat.
Let us consider the implications. If we jail parents for their children's crimes, then we must also jail the parents of every teenager who ever smashed a car window or shoplifted a pack of gum. But no, that would be absurd, would it not? The difference here is the body count. And the body count demands a sacrificial lamb. Or, in this case, a sacrificial ewe and ram.
The judiciary, in its infinite majesty, has decided that the parents are complicit. This is a fascinating legal theory. It suggests that the act of failing to prevent a crime is equivalent to the crime itself. By that logic, every PM who failed to prevent a war is a war criminal. Every publisher who failed to prevent a libel is a liar. Every gin distiller who failed to prevent my hangover is a murderer. But we do not live in that world. We live in a world where the justice system is more interested in making an example than making sense.
The retrial was, by all accounts, a masterclass in judicial fury. The judge, a man whose face looked like a constipated gargoyle, delivered the verdict with the grim satisfaction of a cat that has just brought a dead bird to its owner. 'You are responsible,' he intoned, 'because you did not stop him.' But here is the rub: how do you stop a child who hides his intentions? Do you install CCTV in his bedroom? Bug his phone? Read his diary? This is the logic of an insane person, or a bureaucrat, which is often the same thing.
And what of the shooter himself? He is now presumably in a juvenile facility, where he can spend his days learning about the consequences of his actions from a book that is probably written in crayon. His parents, meanwhile, will share a cell and contemplate the meaning of 'responsible parenting' in a country where the legal system is more unhinged than a pub philosopher on a Sunday afternoon.
This is the state of modern justice: a theatre of the absurd, where the play is written by bureaucrats and the audience is expected to applaud. The real tragedy is not the shooting itself, but the fact that we have become so numb to such events that we now seek to punish anyone within arm's reach. The parents are jailed, the shooter is institutionalised, and the rest of us are left to wonder: why do we keep electing people who think this is a sensible solution? Oh, right, because we are also idiots.
In conclusion, this is a story about a system that has gone mad. The parents may be guilty of some degree of negligence, but to call them accomplices to murder is to stretch the definition of 'responsibility' to the point of snapping. We are witnessing the birth of a new legal precedent: guilt by proximity. And if that is the case, then we are all guilty. Every person who has ever failed to prevent a tragedy. Every person who has ever turned a blind eye. Every person who has ever left a gin bottle unguarded. Lock us all up. We are all responsible for this shambles.
