legal-history legal-concepts
What if a citizen does not accept all laws?
<p>What if a citizen does not accept all laws?</p>
<p>Are there exceptions, when it's not reasonable?</p>
<p>Or are laws so &quot;well-developed&quot; so that one should believe in their rationality without questioning?</p>
<p><em>Enforcement</em> is of course quite hard quality, but this doesn't take in account, whether it's &quot;individually rational&quot;. Intuitively any law can be enforced, but it doesn't necessarily appeal justified for all.</p>
<p>A particular example of such domain would be ideas about restricting speech. If our beliefs and biases do not align, and they do not need to, why would someone else's bias about valid speech be more correct than someone else's?</p>

<p>I am not sure what you mean by &quot;accept&quot;. A citizen need not agree that any particular law is desirable, or good policy, or even rational. What a citizen must do is <strong>comply</strong> with all laws, or risk proceedings to enforce them, criminal or civil depending on the law in question and the specific circumstances.</p>
<p>More exactly all <strong>valid</strong> laws must be complied with. In the US and many other places there are mechanisms for challenge laws as invalid.</p>
<p>It is not generally a defense against an accusation of breaking a law that the law is not rational.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Is it necessary that a citizen must accept all laws? Or are laws so &quot;well-developed&quot; so that one should believe in their rationality without questioning?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No. At the outset, laws might be unconstitutionally or impermissibly vague. One somewhat recent example from the U.S. is reflected in <a href="https://www.leagle.com/decision/insco20180417f29" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Sessions v. Dimaya</em>, 138 S.Ct. 1204 (2018)</a> (similarly <a href="https://www.leagle.com/decision/insco20190624e52" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>U.S. v. Davis</em>, 139 S.Ct. 2319 (2019)</a>). Statutory vagueness strikes the presumption that such laws are enforceable, let alone rational. If everyone took as axiom the premise that laws are robust and rational enough to accept them without questioning, statutes would never be declared null and void in a country's top court.</p>
<p>Additionally, many countries incorporate the notion of objection to a law on the basis of one's conscience. That notion is not limited to one's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector" rel="nofollow noreferrer">refusal to perform military service</a>, but also spans other areas that touch on a person's most fundamental principles (example: Illinois <a href="https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=2082&amp;ChapterID=58" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Health Care Right of Conscience Act</a>) and oftentimes involve or are premised on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law" rel="nofollow noreferrer">natural law</a> theories.</p>
