One may think that by enacting a new law or amending an existing one, all difficulties and obstacles will be removed and everything will proceed smoothly. But this is often not the case because no Act or Enactment can provide a complete answer to a specific situation.
As stated by Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Common Law: “The standards of the law are standards of general application. The law takes no account of the infinite varieties of temperament, intellect, and education which make the internal character of a given act so different in different men. It does not attempt to see men as God sees them”.
The incomplete nature of law is also reflected in the words of Plato in Politicus: “Law can never issue an injunction binding on all which really embodies what is best for each; it cannot prescribe with perfect accuracy what is good and right for each member of the community at any one time. The differences of human personality, the variety of men’s activities and the inevitable unsettlement attending all human experience make it impossible for any Act whatsoever to issue unqualified rules holding good on all questions at all times”.
It is for this reason that the existence of laws, however complete and all-embracing, is not enough. It is the utilisation of these laws by the judges who adjudicate disputes in the context of the factual and sometimes contractual matrix that the desired end result is to be obtained.
Yet when difficulties are encountered in establishing and enforcing rights, there is often a tendency to blame the law for its inadequacy, and ask for a change in the law. An example of this is claims arising out of personal injuries or damages in which insurance companies are involved.
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