The legal notice that the Times of India has sent to Pradyuman does not actually mention any law. That’s because everyone knows that the point is not to prove anything. The point is to sue. In any civilised country, such a suit would be laughed out of court and the court would impose damages on the Times for filing frivolous cases.

Actually, in India too, the result would be the same, but it would take two decades. The Times, with a dedicated legal department, can afford the wait. Pradyuman, if he were to fight the case on his own, cannot.

I’ve heard very often the claim that this or that measure disproportionately hurts the poor. But I think that this claim rings truest when it refers to our system of justice. It hurts the poor much more than it hurts the rich; and often the latter illegitimately benefit from it. To be precise, it benefits those who favour the status quo at the expense of those who want things to change – and usually people who favour the status quo do so because it has made them rich.

Why is our legal system so slow? Yazad’s favoured explanation would be that it is so because justice is a legally provided monopoly, and like any monopolist, the government has an incentive to undersupply the commodity.

I don’t disagree really, but I think that there is an additional explanation. Our legal system is too slow because we have too many laws. Each law is individually vague and each individual action is covered by so many laws that there is no way to tell whether an action is legal or not till it is actually brought to court and a judge actually pronounces on it. Even then, because it is all a matter of interpretation, the pronouncement has an even chance of being overturned by a higher court. Once a case has been decided, it doesn’t really mean that the matter is settled, because if the facts are slightly different, the law may be completely different.

So why do we have so many unclear, intrusive and contradictory laws?

Why, you guys asked for it. Yes, all you non-libertarians. You keep accusing us of being dogmatic don’t you? Now, what you call “dogmatic”, we call “adhering to principles”

There is a very practical reason to have principles – it reduces scope for endless arguments over specifics. Do we have freedom of speech? Well Article 19 of the constitution says so, but given the length of the stupid constitution, we can be sure that it is not the end of the matter. I am sure there is some other clause somewhere in the constitution that starts with “Notwithstanding anything written in Article 19 of this constitution, the government may, in the national interest, from time to time…” and “Nothing in this section shall, however, prevent the government from…”

There are escape clauses all over the place. The constitution is a monument to the pragmatism of its writers. It is this pragmatism that has resulted in the death of law.