I’m looking for some examples/names of organizations, political parties, social movements, social theories, cults,sects, lobby groups,Internet forums, philosophical
theories,fringe/mainstream societies or the likes
advocating the notion that laws should NOT be applied equally to everybody.
I’m not talking about massive concepts like Apartheid, Affirmative action or discrimination based on race, nationalities, gender.
It’s more about different treatment on an individual level when it comes to application of laws.
A hypothetical example:
if a drunk/high driver with a couple of criminal records runs over and kills someone
he should be treated differently from a sober, law abiding Harvard professor who also run over and killed a person.
I didn’t see where your example fit your question. I think hiring practices favoring minorities or other groups determined to be disadvantaged for one reason or another might be a good example. There are a lot of valid reasons for laws being not applied equally but in most cases they would violate other laws that say we should.
The question is about a different treatment on an individual basis.
In your example:
take two candidates X and Y both from a (whatever) minority.
A hiring policy might be fair or unfair in general, but
X should be hired on merit and Y should not,
even though they both belong to the minorities.
It’s not about one group of people against another group.
You asked about groups who advocate different treatment under the law … this only manifests in court proceedings where judges tend to believe the landlord over the tenants … and of course landlords are exempt from the 15% Social Security tax … have access to legislators … historically, the police were at the landlord’s beck and call and there’s still some of that going on … certainly a privileged class would advocate more privileges …
The law does treat those differently because it is a more serious criminal offence to drive drunk and kill someone than it is to accidentally kill someone while driving sober. That’s not tied in any way to whether someone is a Harvard professor, but based on their actions.
As well, criminal records are taken into account as an indicator whether someone has a record, literally, of breaking the law. Again, that’s not based on who the person is, but what they’ve done.
Let’s say the first guy (career criminal) was sober. Would that change the situation?
The entity I’m looking for, actually claims exactly the opposite
that a law, any law, should apply differently
depending on who the person is and not just on what he has done.
In our case:
Career criminal?.. Well too bad… go to prison.
Harvard professor? … hmm… go home and don’t do it again.
There is a chicken and egg problem. Applying laws is itself a legal proceeding. So in a sense, in order to apply one law with differing outcomes, you would need a legal basis for that difference, which makes it legal, and thus not actually a differing application in the sense of the entire law. Different notions of law at different levels.
You could have groups that advocate changes to the legal framework for punishment that make further imbalances in outcomes. So sentencing laws could become more extreme in variation. Clearly a lot of law and order lobby groups advocate things like ever harsher sentences for repeat offenders. Advocates for three strikes laws would count.
Mostly you will see active groups that advocate the opposite. They see unfair imbalances in sentencing, and they want a more even handed and demonstrably fair deal. However this usually comes down to minorities being unfairly treated (where “minority” can also include being poor).
In societies that don’t have rule of law, it becomes much easier to create imbalances. This does not always include monarchies, so not all monarchists count. Advocates for absolute monarchies would count.
The other obvious group are the various nutter groups (sovereign citizen etc) who advocate the simple idea that the laws should (selectively) not apply to them, but can still apply to others.
Quantum Mechanics are total felons when is comes to the Newtonian Laws of Motion … it’s like they play by their own set of rules or something … while they stand before classrooms full of young eager minds telling them different … it’s a shame I say …
The United States of America (and indeed every other state in the world) applies different rules in many respects to citizens and non-citizens. That would appear to qualify.
Your question is seated in the philosophy of the law, which is called jurisprudence. Informal legal systems such as you can find in a tribe or a village do have varying treatments of their people. Members favoured by the headman may escape punishments or decisions rendered against lesser people. Etc.
In fact such a system can look attractive until you examine it. The rule of law is not certain: it is fluid.
By contrast almost every country has adopted certainty of the law as a foundation principle. You might not like the law = beheadings et al, but at least everyone knows where they stand.
I am not aware of any group or organisation which advocates for the law to be applied differently from day to day.
