"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.

steddyeddy wrote: »

Just to clarify when I started this thread it was because this quote is framed on the side of UCD's new law building. I haven't any Irish laws in mind at the moment.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Sleepy wrote: »

What percentage of the Irish population routinely break the prohibition of marijuana or the licensing laws around alcohol?

Certain laws are ignored because they're idiotic and they aren't struck off because our system of government doesn't provide a mechanism for direct democracy, relying instead on elected representatives to choose which aspects of law they want to address with legislation or to put to the electorate via referendums.

A referendum granting gay people marriage equality would pass in the morning. Any referendum on the legalisation of marijuana would almost certainly pass too (as even most who don't smoke it recognise the benefits of taxing it and removing it as an income source for organised crime).

If it wouldn't already, a legalisation of abortion referendum will pass in the next decade, as is likely imo that referendums to remove the compulsory nature of Irish or to remove religion from our education system.

A society should have the right to bypass it's parliament and to force a referendum within a short time period once a reasonable level of support for something has been demonstrated (say a petition signed by 5% of the electorate, roughly 150,000 signatures in the case of Ireland).