Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Kamal Boullata: It is the people who dared to break unjust laws who expedited humanity’s progress. If a law may only serve those in power, but not those who are oppressed and crushed by power, the injured, the weak, and the victimized that is no law to obey. It is our moral obligation to break that law. In our Judeo-Christian tradition, we have had perhaps the first laws that came down to us or come to us from the Book of Exodus. We learn that Moses taught, “There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.” Yet from my experience as a Palestinian, I can tell you that in Israel today, laws that govern the country’s non-Jewish natives are not those that are applied to Israeli Jews. Palestinian Christians and Muslim are prisoners today never cease to tell the world that they do not recognize the decisions of Israeli courts. If one would think of that a little bit further, one can see why some of these people feel it necessary to break Israeli laws.

by Kamal Boullata

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Kigge Hvid: So, actually I have a professor in law just beside me. So, my answer, and he would be very much better to answer that. I can take my sunglasses off. I think that it will be appropriate or necessary to break the law if the law contradicts with the feelings, the values, and the will of the majority of the people. That’s it. This is basically about democracy. If you live in a democracy, which you do, the laws are the rules that people in your world decided to live by. If you should come into a situation where the majority of the people in the states do not accept the laws, then it’s about democracy. Is it most people who believes in law find them good or not, if the majority hates law and kind of [inaudible] to them and they don’t represent their values, then it would be possible to break the law. Hey, Matt, one more thing. This doesn’t mean that you can’t speak up against the law, that you can protest against the law. But, it has to be as long as you live in a democracy and the laws are in agreement with the values of most people of the majority of the democracy, then the way you speak up against the law is nonviolent. Then you use your freedom of speech.

by Kigge Hvid

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Kurt Weidemann: Laws should be broken as little as possible and instead they should be abolished. The habit that everything should be regulated, as we in Germany are said to do and what we presumably really do, can't fix lives but makes them rather more difficult. And we should not continue to pass another law or to change them but ask ourselves: When is a law no longer necessary, when is it superfluous? How can we influence people in a way that it is not a law that prevents them from doing something or that puts them at a disadvantage or advantage but by giving them the possibility to develop in a human way and to act humanly towards other people. Self-determination which is a common word for us is fragile. It is too often regulated instead of saying: This person must think about it alone, they should try to find a solution together. And no government and no power should intervene.

by Kurt Weidemann

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Lesego Rampolokeng: It is wherever necessary to break the law actually. When the law is an animal that seeks to brutalize, to humiliate, to denigrate, to break down that which makes us human, there are laws that are placed a top us not to promote human understanding, to promote human commerce, none to make sure that human beings are able to harmonize the existences, but in order to be serving certain aspects, certain limited little corners of the human experience at the expense of others. Whenever that happens, then it becomes absolutely necessary to break the law. If the law is an ogre, if the law is a monster that is serving the people who made it in order to keep themselves on top of others, then it becomes a human responsibility, a human need to break that law. I believe anarchies are often called for in situations when so-called order leads to the destruction of human life. So, the need to break the laws is forever present with us. And, I will forever break it, when I think that by so doing, I will be setting in place a set of circumstances that elevates me to the space where I can think myself to be alive, where I can feel myself to be existing. I don’t think that the law is this holy, the sacred zone that serves to keep me human. Sometimes the law is in place simply to denigrate and dehumanize other people and that is when it is absolutely necessary to break it.

by Lesego Rampolokeng

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Leung Ping-Kwan: Answertext will be available soon.

by Leung Ping-Kwan

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Lijun Fang: As the law means a harmful power with use of force, it would be better not to break the law for an individual, as long as there is any chance not to. It is the same wherever it is in China, in Iran, in North Korea, in American or in Germany. This question is similar to ask when we, as a fly or any insect, should hit a train running in high speed.

by Lijun Fang

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Lillian Holt: I think that when it's an unjust law and how it affects one. I mean when you think about like Nelson Mandela. He broke the law so called because he "defied the laws of apartheid," which were about dehumanizing black Africans and to be [sure dehumanizing] but that mandated at the time. And I think somebody like Mandela had great courage and it takes great spiritual courage [inaudible] instead of saying this is unnecessarily and unjust. You are dehumanizing us in the process. Do not dehumanize yourself. So I'm going to break this and I will try to intervene with whatever means it takes, revolution. I am prepared to be seen as unpatriotic. I will do whatever I need to do to break this injustice and to bring justice and that's a powerful example, a powerful recent example, of when it is necessary to break the law, when the law only benefits one part of society.

by Lillian Holt

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Livingstone Maluleke: A very interesting question indeed. But then, it may become necessary to break the law when the law denies you the rights and access to life activity. This implies to the effect that if one is really in need of a particular thing which it is the rights to get, then one may break the law. But, this also comes – brings us to the many questions. Who makes this law? How are laws made? Is there enough consultation when this law was being made? Who makes the law for whom? And, who abides the law? So, it’s quite about all set of issues that needs to be brought on board, because mostly the law is almost made by the few, the people who are considered the intelligent. The law is made by those who don’t have the experience of the others. And, in that regard, you will find that this law is imaginizing other aspects.

by Livingstone Maluleke

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Mae-Wan Ho: Well, when the law conflicts with basic human rights, with our basic human values, and it threatens our survival and safety, then we’ll have to break the law. And, quite a number of people do, quite a number of ordinary citizens do. I’ll give you an example. We have a government that would like to impose genetically modified crops on us. I come from Britain, and we have a very strong civil disobedience movement among ordinary citizens, little old ladies like me, they go into the fields and they pull up the crops, because we are not convinced they are safe or necessary. And, they actually do a lot of damage to our agriculture. So, we have no recourse, the government does not listen to the people. And, we have no recourse but to break the law. And I, as a scientist have taken part in defending people’s rights to object when the governments refuse to listen. I have done this in a number of different countries. I have acted as expert witness to say why their actions are justified.

by Mae-Wan Ho

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Mahsa Shekarloo: Well, there are plenty of laws that perpetuate injustices, and I think whenever you encounter such laws, it would be justifiable to break those laws. The final arbiter, I think, are forces, values, principles higher than codified laws. And when it becomes morally imperative to do so, or sometimes vitally imperative, to save lives, to save your own life, then you must do so.

by Mahsa Shekarloo

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Martin Almada: A society dominated by legal norms is a reflexion of social development. A former principle "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" is almost forgotten. Nowadays the principle of all being equal under the law is in crisis due to inequality of laws. A world dominated by other laws is possible, a juster one and showing more solidarity.

by Martin Almada

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Masami Saionji: Law is created by human being and it is not perfect. Law is not created by god, so there are incomplete ones. Law cannot be absolute. If a large number of people think that it is right thing, it seems like offending against the law, however it is not. In Japan for example, when Jews were persecuted by Nazi, a diplomat signed to agree with the paper which indicates strictly not to exile them or stamp on their papers, but by the responsibility of Jews let them fly the country. There are people like that in this world. There are many cases that one offends again the law to save other people's lives and believe that human beings’ lives are more important than a law. More significant law would be created if law is created by a person who has a higher awareness of the world. Human being essentially has to live without law. To live with our own heart is venerable. Law-level people need a law to keep social discipline; however, the law will be not necessary in the world if the level of people increases.

by Masami Saionji

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Masuma Bibi Russel: Before breaking the law you have to know about the law. Every country, they have their own system. Of course, when you see a law is being misused or they are using it for wrong purpose, of course, you can break the law. But you have to know, because it's very important that you have to know the system. And you can -- there are some laws that it doesn’t protect, maybe the citizens, maybe protect -- doesn’t protect politician, it doesn’t protect the drugs abuse and thing and women rights. So, you can break that, you have to know, you have to be clear, you have to be focused, you have to be really clear about it.

by Masuma Bibi Russel

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Mayank Mehta: It may be better, I would say, to not break the law but to amend the law. And that may be the long-term solutions out of this fix. Of course, human beings had many, many times broken; I would say perhaps when the laws are imposed on one set of people, by another set of people, perhaps, some people who are colonizing or occupying the country who impose some law or laws that are imposed by some dictators. Those are of course the easy ones, when we say, well, these laws are imposed by the dictator whose main concern has not me, my well being or the well being of the people. Or the laws are have been imposed by somebody from a different country who is not doing these things for the well being of all people but he’s doing it only for exploitation. Answer in those cases of course are easy but perhaps what we mean, what we should go into are laws which has set up in democratic societies, what do we be do there? There are many laws in democratic societies where we live right now. We are in democratic country. What do we do there when we often disagree with laws? I think it’s better in those situations to come up instead of everyone taking the law in their own hands, to think rationally which is very hard to do as an individual but it’s easier if we all try to remain open to the possibility of being wrong and discuss with each other and come up with a rational response to say this law perhaps is not the best, and we go ahead and generate a rational resistance to the law. A peaceful resistance rather than saying I'm just not willing to try. Then we start doing that thing of questioning our own desire not to obey, before we question the law itself and once we have them back, we go ahead and generate a very gentle and peaceful response. That’s the time that the laws can be replaced and changed but aren’t really broken.

by Mayank Mehta

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Michael E. Tigar: Matt, it doesn't say how old you are. You know, during the war in Vietnam which was a brutal and unjust war, the willingness of thousands of young American men to refuse to be inducted into the army, and therefore to confront the judicial system with necessity of dealing with that reality, was one of the major factors that turned public opinion and the opinion of judges, by the way, against the war. I litigated so called selective service draft cases all across the United States and all the way to the Supreme Court of United States and it was amazing to see how people's eyes opened because of the willingness of these brave young men and those who supported them to break the law. It is the willingness to break the law that provokes these important social changes. And so, when might it be - and you got a key word here - necessary. There is a doctrine in a criminal law and it's called, guess what, necessity. The people who sit in Wheeler Hall of the University California; the people who sit in Chancellor's offices in protest against abominable policies; the people who lie down in front of troop trains; the people who put themselves on the line are acting out this concept that sometimes it is necessary to break a rule of law in order to prevent a greater evil. And even though the law as personified by some judge or district attorney, winds up not agreeing, you know what? When you do it you’re going to get a chance to try your case to twelve people that is jurors, and you'll always therefore have the hope that a few of them are going to vote no, hang up the jury or they're going to acquit you altogether, as did that wonderful English jury in William Penn’s demonstration case back in the 17th century. So, study the background of so called creative lawbreaking and understand the power that it has. You know why Nelson Mandela got out of prison? Because during that fateful summer, non violent demonstrations shut the country down.

by Michael E. Tigar

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Michael Laitman: There is nothing more important than a person's life. After all, through this nature has given him the opportunity to be an active and useful part of society, to achieve self-correction and self-realization. This is why a person can break the law only on the condition that the law obligates him to kill another person. This is really a basis to openly and immediately break the law. On the other hand, in all other cases a person must fight against the law by lawful means. In other words, he must abide by the law, while at the same time fighting to change it. The law can be broken just on one condition: if by observing it he causes the death of a person. This is because there is no higher value in nature than human life. If we will break the law, then anarchy will ensue in the world. This is why we are obligated to come to such a state where we will observe the laws—besides the cases that are irreversible, such as a person's death.

by Michael Laitman

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Michael P. Totten: Answertext will be available soon.

by Michael P. Totten

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Mohammed Arkoun: I would say in an aggressive manner that it is always necessary to think about transgressing the existing laws. Because the existing laws are the result of conflicts within each social group, from the smallest to the largest, from the most archaic to the most modern so here there is from the beginning the issue of the definition of the law ,that is, of the law managing order and disorder. The scandalous inequalities that result from the law and are imposed within a society. Therefore, it it always necessary to subvert the rules of the Law within a society. But think about this inteletuall subversion, cultural subversion. Not necessarily by demonstrations in the street and resorting to violence; This may happen, at it even happens moreover ,but a subversion that has not beem prepared and does not have the possibility to refer to a redefinition of the law shared bu a larger number of citizens of the world, within all the people of the world and well such a violent demonstration like a civil war does not succed to causes useless casualties. It other words, it should be given all its importance to intellectual subversion of all laa forms and I know a colleague in France, Mireille Dumas, professor at "College de France" who wrote a book about the imagining forces of Law, the new imagining forces of Law. That is an example of intellectual subversion.

by Mohammed Arkoun