Law is as per Convenience
Laws are made for various reasons including political reasons, for benefit of vested interests or for convenience and may not necessarily be for the purpose of justice or equality. Authority can mean political authority, social authority, religious authority or economic authority. The Laws enacted may not always be objective and maybe subjective and arbitrary , as per the dictates of any politician or party in power or at the behest of a business house lobby to help in achieving the business goals which may not be in alignment with the greater public good. Further, the Laws may be enacted to deal with an exigency or to satisfy an intense burst of populist demands at the cost of its implications vis-a-vis a larger vision, a broader timeframe or its execution. The Laws may be as per certain customs and practices which have no relevance today but are kept in existence by certain communities for historical, cultural reasons which may define their identity. Governments are subjected to the prevailing political factors and the Laws enacted tend to reflect the forces in play. Political entities are at their heart expressions of quest for power and, as the law making body in a democratic setup is vested with such political parties, the Laws enacted tend to be used as a tool of power more than a tool of Justice. The Laws, at some level, function more as a control mechanism and the political parties are very aware that coming into power would mean making laws, regulations, rules, procedures and amending them. The very object of coming into power is, primarily, to further the political interests they represent, and general welfare of the State and its citizens is of secondary interest and hence is at odds with the tenet of equality.
It is the business of some vested interests to generate certain Laws which will benefit them directly or indirectly. It is the citizen which gets caught in the Laws. Hegel has said that when something is considered Right it is Right of the most powerful. Karl Marx also believed that Law is the will of the ruling class and actually it is a ruse to protect the interest of the capitalists through the police. Cicero has rightly said that the more Laws there are the less Justice there is. Law is a web of concepts woven around the citizen. In Republic by Plato, the character Thrasymachus argues that Justice is the interest of the strong – merely a name for what the powerful or cunning ruler has imposed on the people.
Laws may be for greater convenience rather than based on pure logical reasoning. In the book,‘Law and Its Administration’, Harlan S Stone has explained very well with the help of an example this point. He states, “Suppose A is induced by B’s false statements to sell goods to B under such circumstances that A could, by a legal proceeding, compel B to return them, and that B sells the goods to C, who has no notice of B’s fraudulent conduct. May A compel C to return the goods, or should C be allowed to retain them? Both cannot have the goods .One must suffer their loss. Is it fairer or more just, as between A and C, to give the goods to A or to allow C to retain them? Natural justice or the sentiment of fairness offers no solution. Here necessity requires the adoption of some rule which will apply to all similar cases. The rule that C, the innocent purchaser, may retain the goods, has been adopted and adhered to, because, on the whole, courts have believed that it was most convenient in application and most consistent with other rules of law relating to the subject. Moreover, in determining what is fair or just, the interests of A and C are not alone to be considered, but the community or public interest must be taken. Thus we see that any theory of natural justice or fairness standing by itself will not carry us very far toward the organization of an adequate legal system, and it may be an unsafe test of the sufficiency of any given legal rule .When, therefore, we speak of justice in connection with legal matters, we mean justice according to law as formulated and declared by the courts. We do not attempt to judge the rights of litigants upon the basis of any isolated sentiment of natural justice , but we adopt rules of law governing the cases of litigants , and we accept or reject those rules of law as sound only when judged as a part of a system, the aim and object of which is to limit and control individual action and freedom so far only as is needful to serve the community as a whole .”[1]
Law creates various fictions for its convenience. A corporate entity is a legal fiction. It is a fiction that the same individual can function in individual capacity and in the capacity of a director as per the corporate laws. An adopted child is considered own child and by signing a document is detached from biological parents. There exists a contradiction because a fiction is a lie whereas the aim of law is Truth. Law is more of a social arrangement.
[1] Stone Harlan, Administration of Justice, Columbia University Press (1915), pg 31.