Legal Fiction
“Legal fiction is an assumption that something is true even though it may be untrue. It is made in judicial reasoning to alter the operation of a legal rule. In order to do justice, the law will permit or create a legal fiction.”
The above is the internet legal definition of “legal fiction”, however it is not my definition, and my definition supersedes all others. My definition of a legal fiction is a law created without any verifiable scientific fact, or provable justification. It is a law created at the whim of the legislature to protect their position. A classic example is consent laws, there is no reason to set the age of consent by medical reason, scientific reason, or any other verifiable fact. Often times these kinds of laws are based on religious belief, or other fictitious reasons. If there where any basis for these kinds of laws then there would be conformity across the country and the world, as an example murder is illegal in all countries throughout the world because there clearly is justification that murder is harmful. Age of consent laws range form 16-18 in the various states in this country, but that is only recently, as a few years ago many southern states had consent laws of 14. In the eighteen hundreds is was lower and in English Common law it was 10 as long as the female had started her cycle.
Today it ranges from 11 in Nairobi Africa to 21 in Bahrain. Most countries that have a law of consent are around 14-15. Philippians it is 12, but most Asian countries are 13-15. But it’s not about consent laws alone, there are many others laws on the books which are legal fiction, the age of drinking at 21 which use to be 18. The age at which a person can legally get married, the age to vote at 18 which use to be 21. At what point is a person mature enough to make decisions, 18 in this country today, but yesterday it was a lot younger. Does that mean maturity changes from era to era, I don’t think so although I believe some people would say it does. Yes there are people who at 18 are not mature, but there are people at 16 who are very mature.
I’m not saying there should not be age limits, there does need to be limits, but they should be based on fact not fiction, and nobody should be held to felony status because of it. If a person is not old enough to consent then obviously they are to young to understand criminal intent. I’m not saying a person under 18 should not be held accountable for there actions, they should, but not criminally liable.
Most laws created today are most likely based on “legal fiction” rules. They are not based upon logic and reasoning nor any verifiable facts. Most laws today are created based upon emotions and what can supporting this new law do for me, the legislator. Laws which are “mandates” are not created based upon reason and logic and even facts. Just look at the recent mask “mandates”, vaccine mandates, etc. Mandates and emotional decision making are subjects for another day.