The law gets sillier worldwide
Shocking new facts about legal systems around the planet. A man in the US is suing a nail salon for $200,000 after he was charged $1 more for his manicure than female customers. "I was humiliated," Norris Sydnor III of Maryland told reporters.
It's not clear to me how "Thank you, sir, that will be $10," could be humiliating, and even if it was, how it could add up to $200,000 worth of humiliation.
Surely a man who willfully goes into a nail salon has brought upon himself at least a million dollars' worth of the same stuff?
The Mr. Sydnors of this world make me cringe with embarrassment for the entire human race.
I feel I have to apologise to the dolphins and plants and bugs and things on his behalf. Sorry! We're not all like this! Honest! Some of us are okayish!
A reader from the legal profession sent me the link. "It seems to me that the nail salon has a clear defense," he said. "How can you humiliate a man who makes himself a global laughing stock?"
But what do US law professors say? They're on Sydnor's side! The underlying truth is that America's legal system parted company from common sense many years ago. It's drifting further and further away from solid ground, a bit like Sarah Palin's brain.
The law in Asia is different. It's slow and often corrupt but it isn't ridiculous in the way American law is. But that's probably because much of Asia doesn't have a functioning legal system at all.
In India, for example, there's backlog of 31 million cases. (Not a joke.) It has been calculated that it will take an estimated 320 years for judges to clear it.
Actually, that's given me an idea….
I'm seriously thinking of moving to India and becoming a bank robber. By my calculations, I will have spent all the money and been dead for 280 years by the time my case comes up.
My descendents can take my plea to court: "Our great-great-great-great grandpa pleads guilty and says thank you for the money. He'll pay it back in his next life."
In China they speed up the system by not bothering with troublesome concepts such as "innocence." Mainland Chinese judge: "How do you plead? Guilty or guilty?" With that opening line, they get through dozens of cases before morning tea.
Why is the law so silly? Lawmakers in the Brazilian town of Biritiba-Mirim made dying illegal. They outlawed the activity after noticing the cemetery was full. One irritated resident told the newspapers: "I haven't got a job, nor am I healthy. And now they say I can't die. That's ridiculous."
People who blatantly disregard the law by dying will be punished severely, reports say.
Er. How? Lawyers are drawing up schedules of fines, but something tells me the guilty parties may not pay up. "Over my dead body" is the phrase that springs to mind.
In Hong Kong and the UK, judges wear silly wigs, like players in Jacobean dramas.
In China, judges recently ditched their military uniforms for the black robes popular in court-room dramas worldwide.
Talking of which, I hope I never pick up a crime novel at the airport and find that it's about a guy who was charged a dollar too much for his nail polish.
Now I'm going to go home.
I am terrified that the local wildlife will have read the news and be sneering at me. "Look, a human! They pretend to be humiliated by the tiniest of things and ask each other for huge sums in compensation!"
Will humanity ever live this down?
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