This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“The intricate relationship between law and justice becomes
infinitely more complex when power is brought on stage. A consideration of power is indispensable
because, whatever ideas we have about law and justice, it is power that makes a
real difference in the world – be it catastrophic or providential. Power, in other words, reveals both the
oppressive and benevolent faces of the law.
Only through power can law act as an oppressive apparatus.” – Sinkwan
Cheng, Introduction, Page 3
“For law to rule, it has to be comprehensive in its
potential range. It has to be able to do
anything, if not everything. It cannot,
then, simply secure stability and predictability but also has to do the
opposite: it has to ensure that law is ever responsive to change; otherwise,
law will eventually cease to rule the situation that has changed around
it. So how could the rule of law be complete
if it must ever respond to the infinite variety of fact and circumstance
impinging on it? How could it be closed
when it must hold itself constantly responsive to all that is beyond what it
may at any moment be?” – Peter Fitzpatrick, Chapter 10: Law in the Domains of
Death, Page 210
Is This An Overview?
Justice is needed to resolve conflicts of interest. With the competition for scarce resources,
justice provides a method of managing expectations through agreed upon
rules. But rules need to be enforced,
which requires power. Power determines
whether the law becomes oppressive or benevolent. Justice needs force, but force without
justice is tyrannical. Having power,
does not mean that those who wield power, can do all that is possible with the
power. Those who have power have
overridden laws and justice by claiming a moral duty to their actions.
Laws provide stability and predictability, but also
change. To retain the rule of law, laws
need to constantly respond and adapt to changes around laws. But there are infinite variations of facts
and circumstances that prevent laws from becoming a complete guide to justice.
Caveats?
This book is a composition of various authors. Although each author has their own writing
style, the book is generally difficult to read.
The authors use abstract language, that requires a background in law and
philosophy to decipher appropriately.
The authors often use very short examples as evidence of a
claim, but those examples are not given much context. Making the example liable to different
interpretations based on missing details.
The reader is expected to know a diverse set of examples throughout
history.
