criminal-law civil-law
Has any legal system ever enforced all of its laws?
<p>A <a href="https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/157373/how-to-lawfully-leave-united-states-without-a-united-states-passport-for-united">recent Travel Stack Exchange question</a> about an immigration provision in the federal code lead to a bunch of respondents noting that the law in question is simply not enforced, with one person openly disparaging it as “nonenforced and nonenforceable.”</p>

<p>Obviously there's a problem at some level (legal/moral/philosophical/practical...) at laws that are not enforced. But is that an impossible ideal? My question is therefore, have there ever been legal systems that have enforced all of their laws?</p>

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<p>Edit: The question is not whether the police always catch the criminals, or whether any state has been sufficiently totalitarian to be aware of all crimes. What I'm curious about is a government that refrained from making laws that it couldn't plausibly enforce, or systematically removed laws that it turned out not to be able to enforce.</p>

<h2>Of course not</h2>

<p>No enforcement by humans is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, therefore, lawbreaking that is unseen, beyond power or unknown is not enforced.</p>

<p>Further, as <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1367153-the-good-are-innocent-and-create-justice-the-bad-are" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Terry Pratchet</a> put it “The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.” Since everyone is a little of both, humans have always wanted their justice tempered with mercy. That’s why the executive, be it an ancient king or a modern police officer, has always had the right to turn a blind eye.</p>

<p>Notwithstanding the difficulty determining what constitutes an enforceable law, or cases of undocumented prosecutorial discretion. <strong>The Code of Hammurabi</strong> consists of 282 laws, all of which I would consider enforceable. Where they all enforced at all times? I don't think that will ever be possible to answer for any legal system, but common sense tells me that would be impossible for any notable system of laws.</p>
