Tort Law and Criminal Law in an Age of Austerity

Abstract

In this paper, I consider how tort law and criminal law - conceived as interlocking and overlapping systems for protecting and upholding the legal rights people have against other people - should operate in a society where there are not enough public funds available to run those systems properly or, in the case of tort law, assist people to take advantage of those systems. I discuss how we should identify what kinds of legal wrongs, or violations of people's legal rights, most need to be addressed by a legal system operating in financially straitened circumstances and how those wrongs might be most effectively be addressed in such circumstances. I also advance some arguments for thinking that we will be shortly living in a society where nowhere near enough money will be available to properly fund our justice system, and that we must start thinking now about the issues raised in this paper.

Keywords: Tort law, criminal law, legal aid, legal rights, economic crisis, social collapse, public expenditure, evil, Kantian theories of law, simplification of law

JEL Classification: E66, H11, K13, K14, K41