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
8 events
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| Jul 25, 2016 at 13:24 | comment | added | Jay | @MarkRipley RE where to draw line: Absolutely. I wouldn't want to live in a society where judges could just make up the rules on a totally case by case basis. Even aside from bias, even if the judges made every effort to be fair, you'd never know what the rules are. And of course judges wouldn't always be fair. But on the other hand, we've all heard of cases where criminals get off on technicalities, etc. To make the system work, people would have to be perfect. And if people were all perfect, we wouldn't need laws and courts. | |
| Jul 24, 2016 at 8:46 | comment | added | Mark Ripley | One of the most interesting takes on "fair" legal systems is the concept of make a ruling without knowing anything about the person who will benefit. It's related to the "Justice is blind" concept. If person A did something to person B, the rules should be the same for person A, no matter if they are a street person or a Senator. If the judge, jury or whoever make decisions in a case are able to be unaware of facts unrelated to the legal issue, they are less likely to make decisions outsiders might see as "unfair", such as based on skin color, gender, or social class of the accused. | |
| Jul 24, 2016 at 8:40 | comment | added | Mark Ripley | In simplest terms, the problem breaks down to where on this line do you want your legal system to be? On one end, the judges have absolute power to decide the difficult cases, risking tyranny by those judges, and on the other we hamstring them by creating written rules that get more and more complex and detailed every time someone finds a new problem not covered by the old rules. It's human nature to game the system to maximize your own benefit. Unless you change human nature and/or find incorruptible judges, legal systems won't work perfectly. | |
| Sep 9, 2015 at 5:30 | comment | added | Jay | @supercat RE dollar signs: Yes, I keep forgetting that. thanks. | |
| Sep 9, 2015 at 5:29 | history | edited | Jay | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
escape dollar signs
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| Sep 8, 2015 at 23:03 | comment | added | supercat |
Also, when writing answers on Stack Overflow, you should precede dollar signs with backslashes unless you want to embed TeX expressions. Something like $foo $bar will treat foo as a TeX expression (yielding $foo $bar); if you want do show monetary amounts, use \$foo \$bar.
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| Sep 8, 2015 at 23:01 | comment | added | supercat | A major problem with the use of precedent is that it gives disproportionate power to dishonest judges, since good judges will generally presume that the other (dishonest) judges were acting in good faith, and follow the precedents set thereby, while the bad judges will capriciously ignore the precedent set by good judges. | |
| Sep 8, 2015 at 21:59 | history | answered | Jay | CC BY-SA 3.0 |