Why is it so hard to get public access to the law? Be it city law, state law, federal law, etc? You’d think that making things like that accessible to the public would be one of the reasons why the internet exists, wouldn’t you? If “Ignorantia juris non excusat”, then I think citizens should have the opportunity to see the law so that they’re less likely to break it. And in the event that someone is in trouble, we should all have access to our rights so that we may protect ourselves.

It would be easy to argue, “Well, that’s what law school is for,” but I disagree. I believe that law school is where one goes to learn to interpret and apply the law. It’s a lot like medicine. If you read every piece of medical information that’s available online, you have about as much knowledge of medicine as a first or second year medical student. However, it’s through medical school that a potential doctor gains experience in comprehend that knowledge.

Ironically, while medical information is quite available, legal information is scarce, despite that it’s purpose is to serve us as citizens. There’s something fishy about that to me. I don’t think it’s right that I have to pay someone like a lawyer to ask the simple question of, “What are my rights?” I suppose that while doctors would love if it they were each needed less in order to save lives, lawyers would erupt into panic if their profession suddenly became the slightest bit obsolete.

I can only hope that it’s out of laziness that governments big or small don’t feel like investing time and tax dollars to hire someone to transcribe every written law or court precedent. Especially since the law is a constantly evolving entity. I, on the other hand, feel that it’s quite the worthy investment. I’m sure we have some room in the budget somewhere to direct toward the project. And in the long run, it may actually save us money and keep us safer. Heh, but then the way our culture is, you can lead a horse to water..

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.