Is It Justified to Break an Unjust Law?

Introduction

Every society, state, or country is guided by laws to which members are obliged to adhere. The laws are designed to be both protective and regulatory, overseeing the actions of the members and concurrently protecting their rights from being violated by the governing bodies or organizations during their day-to-day interactions and activities. The laws should apply to all regardless of race, social status, or ethnicity.

However, in some cases, these laws can tend to incline toward the majority and thereby appear discriminative to the minority which defy the moral principle of equality, and as such may trigger the disenfranchised group to rise and oppose them regardless of the consequences. Breaking unjust laws is, therefore, morally justified and acceptable if the laws go against moral principles by violating human rights and conscience, and if the laws are discriminative to the minority hence there is a need for justice and freedom.

Citizens’ Responsibility According to the Social Contract and the Consequences

It is both a moral obligation and a civil duty for citizens or members of a particular community and state to obey and follow the laws, the laws themselves must be in line with the principles of morality. Countries and states come up with laws to protect their citizens from violation and to ensure order prevails in whatever activity or actions their members engage in. To ensure strict adherence to the laws, legal penalties such as death, fines, and imprisonment are always designed as the consequences for breaking the rules.

Nonetheless, some countries and states have distinctive compositions of their members with some groups classified as majority and minority with the majority wielding more power than their minority counterparts. With such classification, laws might incline towards the majority favoring the upper class while discriminating against the minority, “But the government in which the majority rule in all cases can never be based on justice,” (Thoreau).

The discriminated group may feel their dignity as humans is not respected and thus choose to go against the laws despite understanding the consequences. Thoreau stated, “All men recognize the right of revolutions; that is to the right to refuse allegiance to and to resist the government when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and endurable.” World over, the disenfranchised groups have always overlooked the provided state laws and used the moral law of good and evil to protest.

Why Breaking Unjust Laws is Justified

Breaking unjust laws can be justified by the moral principle of good and evil. Individuals know how to differentiate good and evil and hence, understand when the law promotes the moral principle of goodness. For instance, when regulatory laws protect citizens from exploitation by preventing unfair business practices like overpricing or protecting members of the public from criminal practices like theft, drug trafficking, and murder; individuals understand from the moral perspective that the laws are good and promote human dignity and morality. Likewise, if the laws promote the enjoyment of basic human rights like freedom of expression, movement, association, right to vote, and equality then people can tell the laws are objective towards morality and humanity’s dignity and thus, there is a need to obey and oblige (Nagin et al. 771).

However, citizens can tell bad retrogressive laws that go against moral principles and ethical codes and break them. For example, a law that promotes discrimination against a particular group based on their race, ethnicity, or social class are bad law and hence, is justified to be broken.

Secondly, unjust laws are justified to be broken because they are discriminative. If the national laws of a given country provide civil rights like voting but the voting rights are limited to specific race or social class, then the laws are discriminative and defy the moral principles of human equality and hence, are justified to be broken. As in the case of the US during the 18th Century when the politics of race was deeply rooted and every aspect of life was influenced by skin color, the Afro-American community was discriminated against and disenfranchised, “But the government in which the majority rule in all cases can never be based on justice,” (Thoreau).

Civil rights like voting rights were enjoyed based on race with the White Majority and their Asian counterparts enjoying the rights at the expense of the Afro-American minority (Jeffries et al. 560). Despite defying the moral principle of equality and despite being bad laws, discriminative policies were enshrined in both the federal and state laws, and every citizen was required to oblige to them.

In the same period, racial segregation was a common practice with the interaction of minority communities and the White majority prohibited by law. Residential centers were racially marked with boundaries to separate the two groups. White-dominated suburbs were out of reach for minority communities such as the Afro-Americans and their Red Indian counterparts. Similarly, public amenities like transport mediums and social centers like clubs were racially segregated by both federal and state laws. Afro-American individuals who broke the discriminative laws were harshly punished (Yankah and Ekow 1543).

However, to do away with the discriminative policies and achieve equality, the victims and like-minded individuals had to break the law which was justified. Activities like Malcolm X had to break the law in their campaign for racial equality which was justified “SOCRATES: And will be worth having, if that higher part of a man be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice?” (Plato). The argument implies that failure to break unjust laws promotes the status quo created by the unjust laws.

Similarly, the fight against slavery and the consequent abolition of slavery was facilitated by breaking unjust laws of slavery. The abolitionists and the slave rebels rose up against the exploitative laws of slavery to steer the American Revolution which resulted in the abolition of slavery. Slavery was an unjust practice and against the moral principle of human dignity even though it was protected by federal laws. Breaking the laws became a moral obligation and a necessity for ending slavery in America.

Finally, unjust laws are justified to be broken to bring justice and freedom. Unjust laws are always made without considering the interest of the minority and thus turn out to infringe on the minority’s rights. As in the case of the US in the previous centuries, laws regarding racial segregation were only beneficial to the White majority who enjoyed many privileges at the expense of the minority Blacks. For minority communities such as the Afro-American communities, the laws violated their basic human rights and their dignity as people (O’Brien et al. 2). Practices like segregated residential areas and discriminative political practices that denied them the right to vote or hold leadership positions suppressed their economic and political freedoms hence were justified to be broken to bring justice to the group.

Breaking the unjust laws helps in bringing justice and freedom as was seen through the creation of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which allowed minority group to exercise their political freedom through voting and holding political positions “The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed it will inevitably open door for negotiation,” (Ali). Similarly, the American War of Independence which brought about the American independence from the British was another example of how breaking unjust law brought about freedom and justice to the minority.

It is a moral obligation for any citizen to break unjust laws to promote ethics and morality in a given country. As in the case of the civil duty of a citizen to promote the rule of law through obedience, it is equally an individual’s moral obligation to promote morality by encouraging good through just laws and fighting evil by going against unjust laws. While there could be different individual perceptions towards some aspects of morality which can cause confusion and chaos in society if people begin breaking unjust laws to promote morality, there are however common ethical principles like equality, dignity, and freedom which are universally acceptable and which can be used as a moral compass.

Conclusion

Breaking unjust laws is justified because unjust laws defy ethical principles and morality. In addition, breaking unjust laws is justified to bring justice and freedom as seen in most revolutionary campaigns. Besides, unjust laws hardly consider the interest of the minority and hence, discriminative and make the underprivileged groups victims of the state. Lastly, it is important to break unjust laws to pursue some causes and bring about change for the general public. It is therefore justified to break unjust laws regardless of the consequences.

Works Cited

Ali B. Ali-Dinar. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.].”African Studies Center, 1963. Web.

Jeffries, Fiona, and Jennifer Ridgley. “Building the sanctuary city from the ground up: Abolitionist solidarity and transformative reform.” Citizenship Studies, vol. 24, no. 4, 2020, pp. 548-567. Web.

Nagin, Daniel S., and Cody W. Telep. “Procedural justice and legal compliance: A revisionist perspective.” Criminology & Public Policy, vol. 19, no. 3, 2020, pp. 761-786. Web.

O’brien, Karen, Elin Selboe, and Bronwyn M. Hayward. “Exploring Youth Activism on Climate Change.” Ecology and Society 23.3 (2018). Web.

Plato. Crito. 10th Edition, Project Gutenberg eBooks, 1999. Web.

Roy P. Basler et al. “Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum Address.” Sangamon Journal, 1838. Web.

Thoreau, Henry David. On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Sameer Parekh, 1993. Web.

Yankah, Ekow N. “Pretext and Justification: Republicanism, Policing, and Race.” Cardozo L. Rev, vol. 40, 2018, p. 1543. Web.