Rule of Law - in Conflict With Natural Law

In Conflict With Natural Law

Upholding the rule of law can sometimes require the punishment of those who commit offenses that are justifiable under natural law but not statutory law. Heidi M. Hurd raises the example of a battered person who rightly believes that there is a strong probability that her partner will eventually attempt to kill her and her children unless she preemptively kills him. If the law does not permit the acquittal of those who claim self-defense in the absence of an imminent threat of harm, then the person must be punished, or "what will become of the rule of law? For law seemingly ceases to be law if judges are entitled to rethink its wisdom in every case to which it applies and to disregard it whenever it is inferior to the rule that they would fashion. Under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 the defence of 'loss of self control' was created under s.54 and s.55. This removed the time restraint which allows battered persons the possibility of arguing this defence"

Read more about this topic:  Rule Of Law

Famous quotes containing the words conflict, natural and/or law:

    When a mother quarrels with a daughter, she has a double dose of unhappiness—hers from the conflict, and empathy with her daughter’s from the conflict with her. Throughout her life a mother retains this special need to maintain a good relationship with her daughter.
    Terri Apter (20th century)

    The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety.
    Norman Mailer (b. 1923)

    Lawyers are necessary in a community. Some of you ... take a different view; but as I am a member of that legal profession, or was at one time, and have only lost standing in it to become a politician, I still retain the pride of the profession. And I still insist that it is the law and the lawyer that make popular government under a written constitution and written statutes possible.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)