What's this about?
Yeah, yeah, this is another boring article - but with these ongoing court cases here that may seem unfair, I'd like to talk about two black and white interpretations of the law although, the law is actually very grey!
What is the Law?
I suppose the very basic definition of "law" would be a system of rules that govern behaviour. Did we ever have laws and do we have a need for it? I believe its natural. Under this definition, laws are everywhere, in the home, in the workplace and in the country - everywhere! It is a human need to have laws in order to minimize chaos because the natural disposition of a human is peace. But what your peace is may be very different to others!
In this blog post, I'll be discussing two interpretations of the law there are and try to give you ideas on how to interpret the "law".
Spirit of the Law
Quite simply, the spirit of the law is what the law was intended to achieve by those who wrote it. It basically is that, for example, a law about Human Rights is about safekeeping human rights. Those who wrote it, intended for this law to be about the security of those rights wholly. It would basically be the essence of what the law is intended to do. This would be regardless of what was written in the law as under this interpretation, those words are only ways to express the idea in sentences that cover a whole range of issues that follow on from this interpretation.
Letter of the Law
As opposed to what the essence of the law was intended to achieve, what is more common and more prevalent is the "letter of the law". This is basically a little idiom for what is actually written in a Law. So basically if the law was the Racial Discrimination Act (for example), most would follow what the literal writing of the law was. This is an important part of those in the legal word because a law does a - z. But if it missed an e or a t, then it would become a loophole and cause some upheaval. So this maybe, if not, equally important to the Spirit because this is the expression of the Spirit.
Which is better?
I most certainly believe that there are certain times to apply each. The spirit of the law would be most important where there is a crime and someone or something has been hurt or damaged because the law is supposed to protect those who did nothing and punish those who did wrong. In cases where the letter of the law becomes important because the way it is worded may wrong people because of what it says it does, then things should be decided by that concept then and there.
But especially in cases of Appeal, the spirit of the law should apply because it no longer becomes what the law is saying but what it is meant to achieve. The law achieving justice, to be just - this is about what we need to be on the look out for!
Summation
This may have been a useless post but its because I wanted to start my understanding on legal topics. If you have any opinions otherwise, please let me know by commenting! Of course, you need a Google account to do that below but the email is on the side - I think. I am open to your views as long as they are constructive!
But please, the point of this is that the law is always meant to achieve the best outcome for those who do the right thing. Or to protect from those who did wrong. It is important that we citizens take active interactions in our legal world because if we don't, how the heck do we know what's going on? Then, it may affect us! We never know.
Next article will be something about life, so look out!
Remember, this is A Small Point of View...
Thanks : )
No comments:
Post a Comment