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This is why the letter of the law is so important, paradoxically. It is never good to have unreasonable/archaic laws in the book and have law enforcement look t
by hliyan 5y ago
This is why the letter of the law is so important, paradoxically. It is never good to have unreasonable/archaic laws in the book and have law enforcement look the other way. Since almost everyone ends up breaking them, it allows law enforcement to basically charge any selected person. Such laws should be struck off the book. I believe in Latin, this is called Lex malla, lex nulla - roughly translates to "No law is better than bad law".
- _nalply 5y agoCorrect would be lex mala, lex nulla (omit one L).
- Aeolun 5y agoThis is weird. Even I can see that it seems to say nothing but: Bad law, no law. Does latin have an implied ‘better than’ in sequences?
- blix 5y agoWhat's implied here is 'is', i.e. "a bad law is no law." The phrase seems to be a rehash of a quote from St Augustine: "lex iniusta non est lex" meaning "an injust law is not a law", which is more clear.
- dankboys 5y agoThe uk has a lot of these when it comes to speech and there are some fantastic examples
- ReptileMan 5y agoThis is literally MO of every totalitarian government - make it impossible to not be a law breaker, so we can arrest you at anytime.
- comicjk 5y agoI don't think that's necessarily true. This is a trick for working around the rule of law, but totalitarian governments don't need that subtlety. They have dummy courts and full control over what's legal. To take the most extreme example, Nazis didn't pass harsh jaywalking laws and then use them on Jews; they actively made laws against Jews.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoEven the most tyranical regimes can not blatantly declare the ruler god-emperor like Egyptian Pharoes, that just wouldn't fly - they keep up the appearences one way or the other. Soviet Union still felt the need to hold elections and have laws, China officials were removed using charges of corruption, etc.
- antognini 5y ago"To my friends, everything; to my enemies, the law." -- Óscar Benavides
- anigbrowl 5y agoYou can make a legal argument that an archaic law suddenly being punitively enforced is a dead letter.
- systemvoltage 5y agoI agree. GDPR doesn't explicitly state that companies above certain size are exempt for many nuances of compliance or the 'little guy' gets a pass. Yet, almost all small companies ignore full GDPR compliance. Just because no one cares/sues small companies, doesn't mean that they're immune - the letter of the law and its enforcement should be absolute so that shitty laws don't pass the mustard.