Unfortunately, this is not the case in Liberia. Even the most educated lawyers and government officials don't know the laws. I read the article "He's Got the Law (Literally) in His Hands". It was about a situation in Liberia that most in America would find shocking: only a few copies of the law exist, and all of them are in the hands of one person, Philip Banks. Banks took the copies and placed copyright on them under his name, saying he would improve the justice system in Liberia. However, now the people who need the law the most, lawyers, police, and other law enforcers, can't obtain a copy of the law without paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the copyright. The justice system, judges, lawyers and juries, don't have a copy of the law in print that is necessary for them to make fair decisions. It also makes it easy for a government to become corrupt, and blame it on the fact that they don't have access to the countries most basic laws. Anthony Valcke, a British lawyer working in Liberia who was interviewed for the article, states the main idea of the article: "[the written law] is so fundamental to a democracy that it's unbelievable that this situation has been allowed to exist for so long."
When I read this article, I realized the idea of a written law being so important related exactly to the French Revolution. In order for the National Assembly to be successful, they had to write their laws. This situation in Liberia has become a big problem, and this shows how important is is to have a copy of a law. As we have seen in every example of a successful nation, a country cannot be successful with a fair, non-corrupt justice system, and this system cannot be fair without the law in their hands.
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