Has there ever been a legal system without lawyers? Has there ever been a society with a functional legal system but no lawyers? I know “functional legal system” is a bit vague, but basically I’m referring to a society that has something like courts, which decide civil and criminal issues, according to a set of laws. I’m envisioning maybe something like an entire system that works kind of like small claims, where people just advocate for themselves. Has anything like this ever happened?
In the west, the profession of being a &quot;lawyer&quot; came into existence under the Roman Empire, though there were sorta-lawyers in Ancient Greece (orators, who could not receive a fee for pleading on behalf of another). In Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Persia and so on, there was nothing like a lawyer – you were to plead your own case if you ended up in a dispute / being accused of a crime. As far as I know, there were no lawyers under Chinese traditional law.
In brief: In common law systems, are there specific laws? Yes. Are they written down? Yes, here are the laws of Australia and New Zealand. Or are there only previous court rulings? No. Elaboration: Broadly (and rather vaguely) speaking there are 3 sources of law in a common law jurisdiction: Statute law which consists of the Acts passed by the legislature Administrative law which consists of the rules and regulations made by the administrative arm of government under the powers granted them by the constitution or delegated by the legislature Case law which consists of the decisions made by the courts; this can be decisions based on Long-standing precedents whose origins are lost in the mists of time Interpretations of statute and administrative law It is important to remember that the courts only get involved to resolve conflicts (civil or criminal) - they do not unilaterally make decisions on the law. Judges (if they are wise) never give opinions on the law - that is the role of solicitors and barristers who are the paid advocates of the parties. The role of a judge is to decide how the law fits the circumstances of the particular case before them. To do this they interpret the statutes, administrative rules and decisions made by other judges on similar cases. The decision of a superior court is binding on a subordinate court, persuasive on an equivalent court or a court in a parallel jurisdiction and subject to review by a superior court. The overwhelming majority of cases do not make new case law - most of the arguments in court are about why (or why not) the established law applies to the current facts; they are not about what the law is. Occasionally a decision will be made that modifies the previous interpretation or even more rarely represents a paradigm shift - those are the cases that matter!
Because the courts or the legislature decide they have them There is no doubt that both the courts and the legislature in common law countries have the ability to find, create, or extend rights and this has been done in the past. This is, in fact, where legal rights were created. The US Bill of Rights was created by the people in 1791. If the people in 2191 want to grant rights to AIs then they can do this. This is legally possible. Whether it's a good idea is a matter of philosophy and politics.
Ensuring that you are compliant with all laws is a notorious problem. For example, nobody has successfully enumerated even the number of criminal laws under the U.S. (federal) code! There's a book that delves into this problem called 3 Felonies a Day. The title alludes to the (unverifiable) suggestion that a typical person unwittingly commits three felonies a day. (There is some discussion of that claim on Skeptics.SE ... and regular amusement published at https://twitter.com/CrimeADay.) In practice, you can look for safe harbors. Obtaining and following the advice of a licensed lawyer offers some indemnification. For example, if you are part of an institution you can vet your planned activities with its ethics and/or legal counsel. If those activities are later found to have violated a law then that approval could conceivably (but not certainly) transfer liability to the institution.
I've never heard the phrase used this way, and it wouldn't make any sense, anyway; &quot;indemnity&quot; is security against a consequence, so the existence of civil and criminal consequences would be a double non-indemnification. Maybe ask the lecturer for a published example of this usage.
The legal system is set up to alleviate the problem or conundrum of intimidation by perpetrators. In the US criminal system, the State is the plaintiff, not the individual. In the extant described situation, very likely all you would have to do is sign an affidavit that the recovered phone is your phone, and that it was removed from your possession by unknown means on or about a certain date. From your description given here you don't know if it was stolen...you appear to have perhaps dropped it or left it somewhere, and someone picked it up/found it. Clearly it didn't belong to them, but this is more like "recovered lost property" rather than "received stolen property." The craigslist poster might be entirely un-chargeable with a crime, though they might have to give up the phone to you.
I'm sorry to deflate what is clearly a very philosophically interesting question, but the law is straightforward here. The truth, essentially, is the set of facts that you believe to be true. Yes. It means that you will not lie by omission, and that you will provide the relevant facts. No, you don't need to recount history since the first instant of the big bang. Only expert witnesses may answer by giving their opinion or evaluation. This is presumed accurate by their experience and where it is not accurate, the other side may present opposing expert witnesses to contest their conclusion or evaluation. Laypeople are permitted to answer only with their recollection of facts. Lawyers may not ask them what their opinion is, although by your definition every question is about opinion, since perception and memory is limited. But the question "What colour was Mr Smith's house?" and "What architectural style informed the facade of Mr Smith's house?" require different amounts of expertise and opinion. "Truth" isn't jargon, or even technical language here. I generally aim to be truthful, and so when someone asks me what time it is, I don't feel compelled to answer to the nano/picosecond. Would you call me a liar? Am I lying by omission? Similarly, if someone asks me what colour a car is, I don't feel compelled to say "I can't possibly know, because my perception may differ from yours. If you honestly feel that when someone asks you to be truthful about something, then you must either be lying, or lying by omission if you don't start your answer with the first instant of the big bang, your problem is not one of law.
The future prospects are negligible, and the present status of such influence is non-existent. In a few cases, you may find an appellate decision citing some statement from a reputable law review. Here is an article that addresses such influences on SCOTUS (which, the authors note, have decreased over time). However, you are describing a wingnut legal theory, and courts do not rely on wingnut legal theories, they rely on what the actual law is.