Law

Law link (Justice system)
File:Law.jpg
Type	fundamental
A system of rules that are enforced through social institutions in an effort to try to control behaviour. In the modern world, it is often enforced top down through a hierarchical system of paid functionaries.

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“[A]n individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”
Martin Luther King (April 16, 1963) 

Official narrative

File:Legal theatre.jpg

"Legal theatre"... Credit:Schlock Mercenary

Law is a system of rules society enforces upon its members. While society's individual members may not agree with all its rules, they must all agree with them, for the collective good. Prisons and police are needed to prevent infractions by threatening sufficiently painful punishment that people are cowed into obeying the law. Officially, no one is above the law, and it should be applied impartially to all.

Problems

Law has an uneasy relationship with the legitimization of inherited privilege. The legal process has always been captured to a certain extent, and has been some sort of pretext for justifying ongoing oppression.

What kind of legal culture allows the massive deprivation of basic liberty without any evidence? If we want to put one person into a cage for a single criminal offense, we are required, at least in theory, to present evidence so compelling that there is no reason to doubt the person’s guilt. We have to be very close to certain, for example, that the heroin found in the backpack belonged to the accused. But laws authorizing the imprisonment of tens of thousands of people have gotten no such scrutiny — we have not required any factual showing that they lead to any benefits. Lawyers have never required evidence that jailing people with heroin in their backpacks furthers a compelling social purpose....

In courtrooms across America, people are sent to jail every day on the basis of a single witness’s testimony (often a police officer) with no supporting evidence, even though, as a matter of common sense, it is impossible for a reasonable person not to have a doubt about the observations or motivations of a single human witness.

Alec Karakatsanis, 2015

Economic bias

Since the demand to adopt an "all equal under the law" official narrative because irresistible, a range of ways have been found to replace a culture of explicit with implicit privilege.

For pay lawyers

Some national legal systems provide free legal assistance. Almost(?)Template:Cn all permit defendants to employ their own lawyers to assist them. Accordingly, the rich are less likely to be found guilty than the poor.

Fines

Variable fines (modifying the fine according to the financial wealth of the convict) have been trialled^[Where?](Finland?), but as of August 2019, almost all nations impose simple flat rate fines. For those with a large enough disposable income, this equates to impunity.

Corruption

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“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”
Jonathan Swift (1709) 

In may countries, the use of direct cash bribes to influence the legal system is routine. This is arguably less widespread in nations with developed deep states.

Plea deals

Full article: Plea deal

Plea deals allow defendants to admit their guilt, which facilitates and expedites their prosecution, in return for a lower sentence. Crucially from the deep state's point of view, such deals prevent a detailed look at what went on. Jeffrey Epstein, who faced charges of sexual abuse of over 100 minors, was cut the "deal of a lifetime" to plea guilty to one charge. The deal also granted a blanket immunity to any and all co-conspirators.

Global political awakening

Full article: Global political awakening

As of 2015, a matrix of social changes - notably self-education through the internet - appears to be increasing awareness of the hypocrisy of the law in general and of unpunished establishment criminality in particular. Consider for example, the illegal mass surveillance carried out by the NSA, GCHQ and partner intelligence agencies, deep state false flag terrorism, the thefts referred to euphemistically as "bailouts" or Tony Blair's lying the inveigle the UK into the Invasion of Iraq.

Police State rollout

Full article: Police state

Concern about the implications of such a "global political awakening" may be spurring the deep state into a do-or-die to a power grab. In some of the self-styled "democracies" national leaders are abandoning long established legal practice (such as habeus corpus and civil liberties) in a rush to enable authoritarian rule by might rather than right.

US

Full article: United States/Police state

The US is already something of a police state, with open criminality by government leaders and flagrant abuse such as the DEA's purported right to seize property, even of those who are not accused of a crime, or (after a 2015 ruling by Lee Rosenthal) its complete lack to liability to those whose property it damages. In April 2015, Alec Karakatsanis noted that "In the seven years that I have spent working in American courts and jails, one thing sticks out above all else: the divergence between the law as it is written and the law as it is lived."

UK

In May 2015, David Cameron announced a radical re-think, a plan to give "the police powers to apply to the high court for an order to limit the “harmful activities” of an extremist individual. The definition of harmful is to include a risk of public disorder, a risk of harassment, alarm or distress or creating a “threat to the functioning of democracy”. He did this in the name of free speech, stating further "For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone... Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law." This prompted exasperation in some quarters, and the observation that "Leviathan jumps the shark".

In May 2015 ^{[When?] [Who?]}Chris Grayling?Template:Cn announced a new policy was announced which would fine defendants £1200 if they plead innocent but were were found guilty - in addition to any fines or other costs including compensation orders and victim surcharges and costs. This has been criticised as creating an "unacceptable pressure to plead guilty" and because it is a flat rate, unrelated even to the crime, for penalising the poor. "Up to 30 Magistrates" resigned in protest about the charge. Unperturbed, the UK government has announced further increases in court fees.

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“Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction... if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong.”
Alexander Hamilton (1804)  Template:Cn

On Wikispooks

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References