The saga of Geno’s Steaks of Philadelphia, about which I wrote on LRC about a year and a half ago, continues in its absurdity. It also nicely illustrates Jeff Tucker’s column from today on the cruel nature of government “justice.”

The short version is that Joey Vento, owner of Geno’s, posted a sign in his restaurant telling his customers that they must speak English when ordering. For that he has now been subjected to a public hearing before the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, which, coincidentally, is also who filed the complaint against him. Got that? The commission gets to be the plaintiff, judge, and jury in the same case. No individual has even filed a grievance (not that doing so would change the nature of the case), and Vento’s lawyers asked for the case to be dismissed on that basis, among others. This being government “justice,” however, the panel conveniently ruled that they can pretty much do whatever they want since “the hearing operated under a different rules [sic] than a criminal trial.”

The good news is that the panel, operating at the usual rapidity of government bureaucracies, is going to take at least two more months to reach a decision. The bad news is that they get to make all the rules and, as the ones who originated the complaint, are unlikely to rule in favor of the defendant and his property rights.

Ain’t government justice grand?