Justice does not come ready-made - Filip Cosma

I have been a lawyer at the Cluj Bar for 9 years and, for about the same amount of time, I have been a volunteer at PRIMA DATĂ ACASĂ, a non-profit organization that builds housing for families in difficult situations, who have never had a home.

My time in college taught me that the law is one for all, so I assumed that justice is the same.

Life has shown me that things are not that simple. Some seem "privileged". I learned a few years ago, though I probably should have learned this in Roman Law in college, that the etymology of the word "privilege" is privus (Latin for private) and lex (law), in other words: private law.

That's why I believe that, as a lawyer and as a volunteer alike, when I advocate and when I build, I'm actually demolishing privilege. I work, as far as I am concerned, for a world where we all have the same opportunities. Where RIGHT is the same for all.

That journey starts with becoming aware of your own privilege. For example, I am privileged because I was born into the majority ethnicity of this country - no one has ever addressed me with disrespect just because of the shade of my skin or the accent with which I speak. I am privileged that no one has ever commented, when I got behind the wheel, "My God, look at that ox drive! It's no wonder, he's a man!". I'm privileged because the family I was born into could afford to support me. I am privileged that I have a roof over my head, that I have a place I can call HOME, and that in this safe space, I can exist as I want.

And privilege means power and, for me, power is helping others.

The first time I represented someone else in court was when I represented my grandmother, not yet a lawyer, just as a grandson with a law degree, fresh out of college. Grandma Pusa had a piece of land to get back from the state, except that the land had been given by the State Land Agency to the care of a commercial company, and of course that company didn't want to lose the land so they challenging the decision.

I went to the Carei District Court, in a courtroom where civil and criminal cases were being trialed together, so crowded that the person in the defendant's box had the most breathing space. Along with my grandmother 30 other people had been summoned, with land from the same garden. We went with written notes, with reasons why the company's action should be rejected and the decisions of retrocession upheld. The judge agreed. He dismissed the action and, in his reasoning, took up almost all my arguments. At that moment, I felt the proudest I had ever felt. The company my grandmother's land has applealed to the court, but lost there too. Victory for Grandma, I said!

Not all stories I am going to tell you tonight have a happy-end.

In elementary school I had a friend a classmate, Radu, who I used to call over to play with my LEGOs. I had a drawer full. Radu didn't have LEGOs, but every time he came he would tell me, with hope in his eyes, that his father, who was a truck driver, would bring him LEGOs from Germany and next time we would play at his place. I went once to his place and he did not have any. But his hope was still there. 

Instead, one day after school, I went with him to his father's house to ask for five thousand lei. I remember that it wasn't a huge amount of money, I mean, you could get at most 10 turbo gums for that. Radu's father was on the street, behind the block, talking with other adults. Radu greeted him and asked him to come closer, to tell him in private what he wanted. I remember being shocked by the gratuitousness of the violence: the second he dared to ask for the money, his father slapped him without warning. I can't remember the rest of the conversation, but I still have the memory of Radu's red face, trying without much success to keep his tears at bay.

Radu was a cheerful and clever child, but he was the bottom of the class. I didn't understand why then, but I remember that Radu and his family changed their home every year we went to school together. They lived in the rents they could afford. Where was the justice?

It was not his fault we was born in more precarious conditions than I was. I'm curious -- if they at least had stable housing, would they have performed better in school?

I answered my own question the first time I volunteered on the construction site of the association PRIMA DATĂ ACASĂ. This association was founded on the simple idea that people in difficult circumstances should be given concrete help, not pity.

Yes, we build the social housing you've heard about through "marketing campaigns". The difference is that here a house costs a lot less than 35,000 euros and is actually being built. Families work to build the houses and then pay back the cost of the materials in installments without interest or fees. The money we get back allows us to build more houses. My role is to help with legal issues, where I am good at it, and on the construction site, where I am not, I go and build side by side with other volunteers. It's like LEGO pieces: with some clear instructions, the elements of the house fit together to give the desired shape.

I don't do this out of gratitude, I'm not moved by the gratitude of the beneficiaries or the excitement that they feel when they first move into their homes. They have worked harder than I have on the house and it is absolutely their achievement.

I do this because I've seen how much changes after the family moves in. People who used to live in fear of tomorrow start to trust themselves. Then they start to trust the people around them. They learn to work together. They discover they can help and ask for help. Relations between parents and children become better. In their hard-tried lives, some justice is done.

a mother told us that after moving into her new home, she completed her studies to become a nurse. In her own words: "it was the first time that I could say to my son <<Bogdy, go to your room, mom has to study>>". It was the first time they had two rooms.

The director of the association showed me a few years ago an older report from the early 2000s, on the cover of which was a little girl smiling in front of her new home. "This fall, that little girl is going to college. She's the first in her family."

That's the result that gets me out of bed in the morning and lets me know that what we do at the association, we do good. I'm convinced that this world we live in, that our society, with all its flaws, is not a zero-sum game, meaning that you don't have to lose for me to win. I believe in the apparently oxymoronic concept of "altruistic egoism". It can be summarized as "it is worth it to you personally as an individual to help your neighbor. If you raise the standard of living of others, you make it better for everyone". I volunteer because I want to contribute to the common good, to prosper as a society through a helping hand to a few individuals.

Today, in Romania and pretty much everywhere else in the world, especially in the big cities, there is a housing shortage. Very simply, in free market terms: the supply of housing is, I would say "much", too low for the huge demand. Anyone who pays rent in Cluj knows that! The high prices have made some rich, but they leave behind whole categories of people who can no longer afford to live in the city in which they were often born, grew up and led their lives.

What can we do? Let us help in any way we can, let us build houses at reasonable prices, let us ask state institutions to simplify bureaucracy, but also to build social housing themselves, not just ”marketing campaigns”.

Since I first went to court in my grandmother's case, a lot has changed.

In the last 10 years, I finished my traineeship and became a permanent lawyer. I have gone through experiences that have shaped me, given me a better understanding of human nature and made me take a much more nuanced view of everything that previously seemed black and white. Romania has had 9 governments without counting the interim ones, an economic crisis and a pandemic. The Prima Dată Acasă Association has built a street in Jucu, renovated three medical offices and helped renovate a school with the money saved.

What hasn't changed in the last 10 years? All this time after my big victory in my grandmother's lawsuit, the State Property Agency still hasn't released the land so that it can be returned. What did they do instead? It leased it to another agricultural company, ignoring the court's decision with the quietness of one who knows he is sheltered by his own private law.

I would like to live in the world where the state does its job for all.

As a volunteer, it would be great to know that the association has accomplished its goal because there are no more people who, despite working, cannot afford decent housing

As a lawyer, it would be great to stop being in court against the state for something that should have been done by the state itself in the first place.

But for 10 years, I have been learning day by day that justice does not come ready-made. They need us to make them a reality. They need us to turn our privilege into power. To make the choice to defend and help those who do not now have the power to defend and help themselves.

We can stand up for justice in the courtroom, on a construction site or wherever we work. In robes or with a helmet, in a suit or overalls, out of altruism or selfish self-interest. The important thing is that we make that choice, because we are the only ones who can!