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I'll put my comment here.
On the whole, most of us lead tranquil lives and do not upset or abuse our fellow travellers. However, a society without rules and official sanctions could be chaotic (so they say!) The laws were invented millennia ago (10 commandments were not the first by any means and they were Bronze Age, laws of Hammurabi even earlier) to support the notion that some people had power and others didn't. Laws have been about social control and maintaining vested interests ever since.
Most laws have their root in an attempt to prevent selfishness and greed on the one hand and punish those whose victims can shout loudest on the other. That the interpretation of laws in this country are cumulative and rely on precedents set in highly complex previous cases is beyond doubt, and of course means that only the highly learned and expensive Lawyers can get their minds around this complexity.
Furthermore, laws in this country are either civil where one person sues another for damages caused by some alleged wrong act or attempts to prevent a supposed wrong act that they suppose another is about to perpetrate; and criminal where parliament has passed an act forbidding a certain course of action and suggested a range of punishment (or not). The Police are agents of the court and will attempt to ensure that the criminal law is being observed, and deliver those who do not to the court. They also have the task of delivering warrants issued by the court. The police have no duty other than the deliverance of warrants and maintenance of the sovereign's peace, to intervene in civil actions.
On the whole, most of us lead tranquil lives and do not upset or abuse our fellow travellers. However, a society without rules and official sanctions could be chaotic (so they say!) The laws were invented millennia ago (10 commandments were not the first by any means and they were Bronze Age, laws of Hammurabi even earlier) to support the notion that some people had power and others didn't. Laws have been about social control and maintaining vested interests ever since.
Most laws have their root in an attempt to prevent selfishness and greed on the one hand and punish those whose victims can shout loudest on the other. That the interpretation of laws in this country are cumulative and rely on precedents set in highly complex previous cases is beyond doubt, and of course means that only the highly learned and expensive Lawyers can get their minds around this complexity.
Furthermore, laws in this country are either civil where one person sues another for damages caused by some alleged wrong act or attempts to prevent a supposed wrong act that they suppose another is about to perpetrate; and criminal where parliament has passed an act forbidding a certain course of action and suggested a range of punishment (or not). The Police are agents of the court and will attempt to ensure that the criminal law is being observed, and deliver those who do not to the court. They also have the task of delivering warrants issued by the court. The police have no duty other than the deliverance of warrants and maintenance of the sovereign's peace, to intervene in civil actions.
And ...
The idea that the legal system has anything to do with justice belongs with the notions that the world is flat and that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden. A courtroom is a wonderful place for Lawyers to act out their parts and play their games. Often even the tempering of proceedings by the presence of a jury and their undoubted "common sense" can be thwarted by clever legal flummery. In the main, unless the accused is so patently guilty by admission and overwhelming evidence at the start of the trial, the side with the cleverest (most expensive) Lawyers usually wins.
The idea that the legal system has anything to do with justice belongs with the notions that the world is flat and that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden. A courtroom is a wonderful place for Lawyers to act out their parts and play their games. Often even the tempering of proceedings by the presence of a jury and their undoubted "common sense" can be thwarted by clever legal flummery. In the main, unless the accused is so patently guilty by admission and overwhelming evidence at the start of the trial, the side with the cleverest (most expensive) Lawyers usually wins.
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