John Clarke, former major organizer of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, twittered the following: Class based and racist to its core, the #bail system warehouses those supposedly innocent until proven guilty. Even when conditions of release are granted, they're often petty and needless restrictions. The effort to make this worse is quite appalling. https://www.readthemaple.com/tightened-bail-restrictions-unlikely-to-curb-violent-crime-experts-warn/?ref=maple-digest-news-newsletter
Category: Bourgeois law
The Real World of the Rule of Law: Courts as Oppressive Organizations, Part Four: To Resist or Not to Resist the Police
Are You Arrested? The Ambiguity of Being Detained by the Police When a police officer stops a citizen, an immigrant or a migrant worker, it may be understandably unclear whether s/he is arrested or not and what s/he can do or not do if stopped by the police. From McBarnet, page 36: Arrest-that is, the … Continue reading The Real World of the Rule of Law: Courts as Oppressive Organizations, Part Four: To Resist or Not to Resist the Police
Law (the Legal System) and the Coercive Power of Employers as a Class
Introduction It is interesting how little discussion arises over the nature of the legal system and how it contributes to the exploitation, oppression and economic coercion of billions of workers throughout the world. Unions rarely if ever discuss such issues--it is considered to be utopian at best--whereas unions dealing with the "real" problems that workers … Continue reading Law (the Legal System) and the Coercive Power of Employers as a Class
The Real World of the Rule of Law: Courts as Oppressive Organizations, Part Three: Arbitrary Arrest and Police as Privileged Citizens
Introduction This is a continuation of a series that exposes the reality of courts as part of the exposure of the reality of the rule of law. The series involves quotes from the book by Doreen McBarnet (1983) Conviction: Law, the State and the Construction of Justice as well as short commentaries related to the … Continue reading The Real World of the Rule of Law: Courts as Oppressive Organizations, Part Three: Arbitrary Arrest and Police as Privileged Citizens
The Real World of the Rule of Law: Courts as Oppressive Organizations, Part Two: The Case, Not the Truth, is Relevant in Court Proceedings
Introduction This is a continuation of a previous post (The Real World of the Rule of Law: Courts as Oppressive Organizations, Part One). I explored how judges influence what juries define as "reasonable doubt." As I indicated in the previous post: The following series of posts are meant to complement the series of posts on the … Continue reading The Real World of the Rule of Law: Courts as Oppressive Organizations, Part Two: The Case, Not the Truth, is Relevant in Court Proceedings
The Real World of the Rule of Law: Courts as Oppressive Organizations, Part One
Introduction The following series of posts are meant to complement the series of posts on the issue of reforming versus abolishing the police (see for example Reform or Abolition of the Police, Part One or Reform Versus Abolition of the Police, Part 8: The Police and the Political Economy of Capitalism). The following is mainly a series … Continue reading The Real World of the Rule of Law: Courts as Oppressive Organizations, Part One
The Abolitionary 