Law And Feedback Loops – Lagging the Developments in Society

The process of change is often accompanied by feedback loops. A Feedback loop starts with an event. This event is acknowledged by people and according to the appreciation of the event, people may respond. This response in its turn could lead to a force to adapt and influence new events.In law there are also feedback loops and these loops are more extended compared with other areas in society. Law seem to behave more conservative than others rules, and probably for a good reason.First of all and most important, in order for law to function it requires previous cases (case law) to happen. Only after the evaluation of these cases, new laws my be designed. And these will affect new future cases. This is a normal feedback loop; first there is the incident, the acknowledgement of the incident and then the decision to change things.Then, law is developed indirectly by citizens through a democratic process. First we vote for politicians and they develop and change laws in a process where different institution operate a specific role — the preparation and design of new laws is a ministerial operation, the approval is done by the parliament.A high velocity in the change of laws would make the society probably unstable.When a new law is accepted, society will have to be informed and this will change the same society, but only gradually. As with any change, the implementation of new rules take time before they become effective; before they will affect society. Before you and I will act in another way.A good example of such a loop is the current organ donation issue, for example in the UK. To date, this law is open to a lot of critique, but the organ donation law will not be changed overnight. Change needs more to happen.© 2006 Hans Bool

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