Preparing for the third hearing

They say the law is an ass, and it seems to be a slow ass. 

I just realised that laws, like tennis games, take place in courts, and this seems a bit like a tennis game, but a very very slow one. Tennis through treacle. In April we turned up to the court, and bounced our ball on the floor. In May we served. In July, the other side hit the ball back.

In fact when I say they hit the ball back, they hadn't even been in the court in May. They didn't turn up to the first hearing, which apparently is normal in Japanese court cases. And rather than hitting the ball back, it was more like they were bending over to tie up their shoe laces, then they fell over, and somehow the ball hit them on the ass and bounced back over the net in our direction. 

So on October 2nd the ball is back and we have prepared for the next shot. Unlike the court system in the UK, or at least the ubiquitous US courts that we're used to watching in movies and on TV, the Japanese system is heavily based on the written word. Indeed, Japanese culture is heavily based on the written word, but that is another story for another day. 

The written papers had to be submitted a week before the hearing and this makes the court hearing much less about hearing what people have to say and more about clarifying what has been written. It is possible to add verbal amendments and the judge can make some comments and ask for clarification, but there is not really any cross examination. 

In the second hearing their lawyer called me by first name in court, which I should have immediately picked him up on. I'm not sure whether he was being rude, had confused my first name with my last name, or was confusing me with another Mark who had also had his contract terminated at the same time. Or perhaps he was confusing me with a teacher who had the surname Marck who worked in the education faculty over ten years ago. I think it was just confusion and he wasn't being deliberately rude, just accidentally rude. That doesn't really make it better, but his confusion may extend to the finer points of employment law, which I believe are a bit more challenging than getting someone's name right. I'm glad that he didn't address me by my middle name.