Chapter 26 twenty six laws

As far as its nature is concerned, the scope of the law can be defined, and everything that is enacted or agreed, within a certain scope and within a certain period of time, is binding on certain people, even unwritten.If understood in this way, then a certain rule of a certain small unit is the same.However, the so-called law usually refers to written documents formulated by a state unit with legislative functions. This is what I want to talk about here.One is that in terms of nature, there are several types, and they are divided into different levels, such as the highest level of the constitution; for different nature, if there is criminal law, A hurts B, it must be dealt with according to it, there is civil law, A If the money owed to B is not repaid, it should be dealt with according to it.Reasonable here, if you want to talk about law in general, then everything called law is included.

Why do we need laws when we live in groups?This can be said bluntly because we are not sages, we are ordered by heaven, have lust, and if we want to satisfy them, we may deviate, or to put it bluntly, do bad things.The cause or purpose of the law is to prevent people from doing bad things. Its meaning is: you live in this group, you are only allowed to do this and so, and you are not allowed to be like that or that; Well deserved revenge.The so-called people mentioned here, the so-called you, refers to all sane adults, that is, people whose own will can control their behavior.In this way, from a historical point of view, human laws can be divided into two categories: one category, the early, or feudal, laws are based on eloquent words, and those who speak eloquently are of course not restricted, or that a certain People or some people have privileges and can get away with it; the other category, late in the era, or democratic, is the law, which is determined by the whole people in principle, and it is supreme. No one can say what the law is, but you can break the law and do whatever you want .Comparing the two categories, at least from the perspective of the vast majority of people, of course the latter category is reasonable and better.However, history, or tradition, is too powerful, so it is not easy for the law to change from the former type of "essential benevolence" to the latter type.There are two difficult manifestations.First, formally the law is determined by the people, but the so-called public opinion is actually the meaning of those in authority. This is golden words in disguise.Second, when laws are enacted, there are indeed many reasonable or beneficial provisions in them, but people with authority may not abide by them or implement them, so the so-called laws become written documents, and what is there is equal to nothing.

In order for the law to be truly useful, there are many legal matters that we must work hard to achieve.The first item, or the first thing to say, is that legislation must be made by the people, and it must be based on the true will of the people.There are also many problems in this regard.Tianzi No. 1 is of a philosophical nature, yes, public opinion will definitely be good, of course I can’t guarantee it.However, as analyzed in many places above, we have to take this path because there is no other way to go.Or to be more optimistic, such as ten people eating at a table, choose to eat Sichuan cuisine or Shandong cuisine, disagreement, vote, seven Sichuan, three Shandong, from the majority, even if everyone may not be happy after serving the dishes, at least a majority can be obtained. The effect of complaining.The same is true of legislation. It is very difficult to seek perfection, and we can only ask for the approval of the majority, so that there will be no small gaps and the public will not be angry.The next problem is not small, maybe even bigger. In terms of implementation, how can we achieve the establishment by the people.This has also been mentioned before, and it is impossible to ask everyone to participate, and it may not be appropriate.As a last resort, I had to beg for help in the election.After that, assuming that the chosen person can really represent the people and make legislation, what conditions must be met?

In general, there are two conditions.On the one hand, it is the legislator, if it is an expert with both ability and political integrity.The requirement of virtue is to only care about the interests of the people, regardless of other things, such as power, money, and closeness.It is proficient in knowledge related to law, including social conditions and the like.Legislation is a major and complicated matter, and one cannot do it without virtue or talent.On the other hand, we should pay attention to the following principles when making legislation. One is the principle of fairness.This is the modern saying that everyone is equal before the law, that is, everyone's interests must be taken into account.Here we talk about fairness, not equality. For example, for the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled, it can be stipulated that they should be paid more without hard work, or even paid without hard work. This is unequal, but it is in line with the principle of justice.Second, have a vision.In the current situation, we must see the possible or necessary developments and changes in all aspects of society. Among them, the desirable ones should be promoted through legal regulations, and the unsatisfactory ones should be prevented through legal regulations.The third is to be realistic, that is, to gain insight into all aspects of society, prescribe the right medicine, and seek to be effective.

In terms of legislation, there is still the problem of being more lenient than strict.Specifically, it is a certain kind of behavior that causes harm to the child.It is better to deal with it lightly or severely.This issue is very complicated, because there are various types of wrong behaviors, and also, from the aspects of people, motives, and results, they also have different weights, and they are different, so it is not appropriate to treat them equally.I can only talk about principles here.One is that in general, in order to minimize illegal phenomena, it is better to be strict than to be lenient.One is to treat them differently. For example, if officials and civilians violate the same law, the former should be strictly enforced, while the latter can be lenient; and if the illegal behavior has caused bad results, those with good motives should be lenient, while those with bad motives should be lenient. Yu Congyan.

In terms of legislation, there is still the problem of favoring the rough and the fine.Personnel is complicated, and details must be cumbersome.But cumbersomeness has cumbersome benefits.There are positive aspects of the benefits, which are all kinds of illegal phenomena, and the punishment; generally there are laws to follow. There are also negative aspects, which can prevent people with bad intentions from taking advantage of loopholes.To give an example of a headache that many people feel, if there is a law that limits the number of days to complete the formalities of going to the government for certain things, and there is a tradition of doing it according to the law, there will be no such thing as arbitrarily delaying without giving gifts.

The law is the basis for dealing with social problems. If the social situation changes, what should we do with the law?Obviously, social conditions often change rapidly, and the Fa cannot follow step by step, because it will often change.Often times, the troubles of the legislature are a trivial matter, and the people will be at a loss what to do is a major event.Therefore, both the situation and the principle must be that no matter how the social situation changes, the law can only follow steadily: steady means not changing, and following means changing when the time is right. Immediately after the legislation, there is actually a more serious problem, how to ensure that it can be implemented in accordance with the law.There were also laws in the autocratic era, but the emperor had the right to execute people at will, which belonged to feudalism.After simply saying that there is a constitution, if the constitution stipulates that the people have freedom of speech, it can still be regarded as a crime if someone says something against the ears of the authority, because the words of the authority are the law, that is, they have power beyond the law.Therefore, in order for the law to be truly effective, no one has the power to transcend the law (including the power to make legislation); this is the so-called supremacy of the law.If the law is really established by the will of the people, the supremacy of the law means the supremacy of the people, or democracy.The idea of ​​the supremacy of the law is just a sentence, at most it is a principle, and if it is to be translated into practice, there must be a way to protect it. At present, the common practice is judicial independence.Independence means being responsible only to the law and not subject to the jurisdiction of any other forces.Any of these forces is actually administrative power, because only it can use force and has great power.The supremacy of the law and the independence of the judiciary, the most important manifestation is that those in power, including high and low, can be punished according to the same law as long as they break the law.Under this circumstance, if the administration has no power to instruct the judiciary, it is even more of a problem.

Finally, the law is always mandatory, so its "value" is not supreme.The reason for saying this is: First, even if the laws are as thin as a cow, there will always be some people (even if they are a few) who are not afraid or even willing to break the law;This custom arises less from the existence of sound laws than from the proper education of the great majority of the people.Make a metaphor.We draw a horizontal midline.The law is mainly to prevent people from falling below the median line. As for rising above the median line, it depends on education.How can education be improved?Another topic to discuss below.