Fine points of the Law
Dec. 18th, 2014 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bubbleblowerRecently I got to thinking about the legal doctrine of Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy as it is practiced in Plergbistan and other places whose laws are derived from the Plergbistani legal system.
According to the doctrine of Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy, if all the parties to a lawsuit are too evil to deserve the spoils of victory, the prize may be awarded to some deserving third party who is not otherwise connected to the case.
Traditionally, when a dispute between two small-town merchants came before a local judge and said judge became thoroughly disgusted with how both litigants were behaving, he could invoke Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy to award the amount in dispute to one of the poor families in the town. This tended to moderate people's tendency to go to court at the drop of a hat over something that could have been settled amicably, and also acted as a de facto charity.
However, when cities got so big that most people did not know one another, it didn't work as well. How were the judges to know who might be deserving? And if people don't know one another, what's to keep corrupt judges from slipping in and awarding prizes to their cronies?
Some organized charities started offering to assist the courts in finding deserving recipients. In some cases this worked well, while in others the supposed charities turned out to be as capable of evil as any traditional litigant. The doctrine of Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy fell into disuse.
Now that Plergbistan has instituted a national lottery, the lottery operators are starting to ask the courts to name them, along with the welfare bureaucracy, as Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy administrators. The idea is that when a court invokes Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy the welfare people can produce a list of deserving recipients, whereupon the lottery people can assist the court in choosing one at random. They claim that a random selection is somehow more "fair" than having the judge make the choice personally.
Many are eager to see this scheme implemented. Others foresee little good coming from it. I personally am undecided.
According to the doctrine of Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy, if all the parties to a lawsuit are too evil to deserve the spoils of victory, the prize may be awarded to some deserving third party who is not otherwise connected to the case.
Traditionally, when a dispute between two small-town merchants came before a local judge and said judge became thoroughly disgusted with how both litigants were behaving, he could invoke Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy to award the amount in dispute to one of the poor families in the town. This tended to moderate people's tendency to go to court at the drop of a hat over something that could have been settled amicably, and also acted as a de facto charity.
However, when cities got so big that most people did not know one another, it didn't work as well. How were the judges to know who might be deserving? And if people don't know one another, what's to keep corrupt judges from slipping in and awarding prizes to their cronies?
Some organized charities started offering to assist the courts in finding deserving recipients. In some cases this worked well, while in others the supposed charities turned out to be as capable of evil as any traditional litigant. The doctrine of Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy fell into disuse.
Now that Plergbistan has instituted a national lottery, the lottery operators are starting to ask the courts to name them, along with the welfare bureaucracy, as Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy administrators. The idea is that when a court invokes Sbiwuwy-Wiwuwy the welfare people can produce a list of deserving recipients, whereupon the lottery people can assist the court in choosing one at random. They claim that a random selection is somehow more "fair" than having the judge make the choice personally.
Many are eager to see this scheme implemented. Others foresee little good coming from it. I personally am undecided.
