Timeline for How could a society that emphasises spirit of a law over loopholes develop a legal system
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
23 events
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| Feb 8, 2016 at 3:32 | comment | added | Xandar The Zenon | This question looked really interesting. Then I started reading a ten page question and answer, with comments the size of paragraphs. This question is quite in depth, and not for the faint of heart. | |
| Oct 16, 2015 at 14:31 | vote | accept | dsollen | ||
| Sep 10, 2015 at 11:23 | comment | added | komodosp | A law with loopholes that can be abused is simply a badly written law, and that is why there are many books on the law - to try to cover these loopholes. The problem with "the spirit" is that now you have to give more power to judges to interpret the spirit. This means that it is a lot more open to moralising and even may depend the mood of the individual judge on the day, as well as adding time to the resolution of cases as expert witnesses need to be called in (e.g. a psychologist to assess the maturity difference between the 18 year old and the 17 year old in your example) | |
| Sep 10, 2015 at 10:04 | history | edited | JDługosz | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 9, 2015 at 14:11 | comment | added | supercat | @Hurkyl: Good legal systems should adhere to that principle, but I'd suggest that a key to that is recognizing that some things are and should be nebulous. See worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/12331/891 my answer on a related question. | |
| Sep 9, 2015 at 9:17 | answer | added | glenatron | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 9, 2015 at 9:12 | answer | added | Thorsten S. | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 9, 2015 at 7:58 | answer | added | Stig Hemmer | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 9, 2015 at 7:20 | answer | added | user11599 | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 9, 2015 at 1:32 | comment | added | user2781 | AFAIK, the core principle behind all legal code ever in the real world is that the public should know what is illegal and what the punishment is for doing illegal things (e.g. if you steal, you lose a hand). This requires some amount of focus on the letter of the law, so as to clarify the spirit and to offer peace of mind and protection to the populace (e.g. Hammurabi promises not to have your hand cut off unless you steal). If you don't want that, I think whatever substitute you use will have to be very alien, at least in its principles. | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 22:26 | answer | added | supercat | timeline score: 3 | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 22:15 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | the only issue is that that direction is not "natural." The legal system tends not to go in the direction it needs to for this goal. It's pretty heavily set on the "do everything objectively, and only fall back on subjective when nobody has given you objective guidance" we use today. | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 22:15 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | Just looking at the two major answers, there's some agreement. It's not easy to "modify" our way out of the current system, because the system of precedence isn't built to do so. I think it actually does a good job of exemplifying the issue: if you try to better define the "spirit" of the law in a legally binding objective way, you actually get the exact opposite of the motion you desired in the first place. I could offer a third answer, specifically coached as "the people have decided de-jure their goal is to bring back the spirit of the law" and discuss how to adjust that direction | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 21:59 | answer | added | Jay | timeline score: 10 | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 21:31 | comment | added | dsollen | @Random832 presumably a judge will make a ruling on which side is more correct to the spirit, and decide if the disagreement was in good faith or attempt to abuse the system. Again I stress I'm not looking to abandon all common sense to go to a theoretical extreme. A heavier emphasis on spirit of law does not necessitate removing all law or ruling bodies, nor does it mean we could not have some parts of law that are strictly rules with limited spirit in appropriate places. I'm more looking for a modification to existing working systems that is still viable while considering spirit... | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 21:27 | comment | added | Random832 | What happens in your society if each side really did believe that their interpretation was the correct spirit of the agreement they made? | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 21:05 | answer | added | Cort Ammon | timeline score: 2 | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 20:22 | answer | added | CR Drost | timeline score: 4 | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 19:34 | comment | added | Davislor | You might want to search for Chthonic Law. The short answer is: once people write down authoritative explanations of what the Spirit of the Law really is, those are by definition written laws and people start lawyering them, too. | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 18:19 | history | edited | dsollen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 8, 2015 at 17:27 | answer | added | Cort Ammon | timeline score: 16 | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 16:58 | history | edited | Dan Smolinske | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Homynym
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| Sep 8, 2015 at 16:13 | history | asked | dsollen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |