Proof of a necessity

The delinquent and the law

Universalisation, justice, law and legislation.

There is a double prohibition — that on states to derogate from certain rights, and that on individuals to transgress certain values, for crossing them would lead to the negation of what gives humanity its meaning. Mireille Delmas-Marty

If there were no longer any delinquents, humanity would have to invent them. This phrase seems somewhat provocative — but it is nonetheless true. As we explained on the previous page, the delinquent is indispensable to human progress.

A desire for perfection.

For millennia, people have been working to improve law, legislation and justice. Every year, quantities of laws are promulgated; others are reformed or improved. This progression of law shows no sign of stopping — on the contrary, it gives every sign of wanting to continue well after us. One can therefore say of justice that it seeks to reach its perfection.

A combined task

Law, legislation and justice have not yet reached their perfection. To reach their summit, these values need the combined work of the delinquent and the legislator. Let us illuminate this logic with a small experiment.

Let us stop humanity for a moment. We are in the early years of the 21st century — let us call this moment "Instant T". Politically, technically, legislatively, socially, intellectually and scientifically, humanity has arrived at degree T of its evolution. Since its origin (Instant A), our species has made enormous progress. But none of its disciplines has yet reached perfection.

On legislation

The penal code, though already rich, has not reached perfection either — otherwise jurists would have stopped working on it. Law is still imperfect; it allows a considerable number of legal abuses to pass through. Moral harassment, discrimination, egoism — these are some of the licit outrages that pass through the net most of the time.

Let us continue our hypothesis. Imagine that from this moment, all of humanity were to scrupulously obey the current penal code — every person on earth conforming to the laws as enacted in 2001. Would humanity have finished with the abuse of others? Obviously not. Through the flaws in law, humanity would continue to abuse its fellows as it regularly does.

Even if everyone obeyed the laws of 2001, numerous flaws would subsist — flaws that humanity would need to fill in the future. As it will need to complete the universalisation of law to put an end to the "relocation" of abuses.

In other words, even if "current humanity as a whole" were to perfectly obey "current law", humanity would still be imperfect. The numerous gaps in law would allow new delinquents to abuse others. Society would therefore need to promulgate new laws following these abuses. And the creation of new prohibitions would naturally give birth to new delinquents — and this mechanism will continue until law, legislation and justice have reached their perfection.

What remains to be perfected

Neither humanity nor law has yet reached its unsurpassable point of perfection. Today, a quantity of unjust acts are still permitted: nepotism, elitism, the sale of arms to vulnerable countries, the abusive use of celebrity, inequality of treatment, media manipulation, the arbitrary use of the UN, the unjust use of pressure groups — and so on. These abuses permitted today will be prohibited in the future. Every breach allowing injustice to express itself will naturally be plugged by the future. In summary, if the delinquent has a fundamental vocation in the evolution of humanity, it is necessary to humanise punishment.

Written in the year 2000

He who accepts with a smile to be robbed himself steals something from his thief. William Shakespeare