Juhani’s Law

By: Law is Cool · May 16, 2009 · Filed Under Humour · 4 Comments 

Juhani’s Law:
The compromise will always be more expensive than either of the suggestions it is compromising.

Comments

4 Responses to “Juhani’s Law”

  1. Tim B on May 16th, 2009 9:40 pm

    …which is only really a concern if expense is your primary measure of success. It’s more expensive to have a trial, for example, than simply have the police determine guilt and punishment. Trials are a compromise between individual and state power. Would anyone reasonably say that the added expense of a trial is undesirable?

    Incidentally, I don’t know if I think Despair’s definition of compromise is actually compromise. I’d say that what’s described would be more accurately called “tolerance”.

  2. Marnie Tunay on May 17th, 2009 1:43 pm

    I would seriously question the validity of the proposition that a trial may be termed “a compromise” between individual and state power.
    A compromise is the meeting of two opposing points of view in a give and take that is not in essence adversarial – unlike a trial, which is in essence adversarial and which may very well not involve any giving up of position on one of the sides at all.

  3. Tim B on May 18th, 2009 12:20 am

    Well, a trial isn’t a compromise between the parties in the trial, but the existence of trials is a compromise between different concepts of justice. Some might prefer that the police be all-powerful; others would prefer that disputes were settled privately.

    It seems to me that Juhani’s Law is somewhat pejorative of compromise. The implication is that the greater expense associated with compromises is undesirable, and it would be better to select one of the two suggestions, rather than incur the additional expense of trying to make both parties happy.

    The informing principles of modern, advanced democracies embody a great deal of expensive compromise, and I think a commitment to democratic principles necessarily entails the additional effort and expense that comes along with that. Juhani’s Law may be true, but it may be a bad idea to apply it in a lot of situations.

  4. Marnie Tunay on May 21st, 2009 12:01 am

    There is also the question of what sort of “expenses” will be taken into the balancing of accounts.

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