Orwell\u2019s dystopian novel imagines the \u2018worst of all possible worlds\u2019, where all the social, political and religious institutions have broken down as a result of never-ending war, leaving the population oppressed by the \u2018government\u2019\u00a0(the \u2018PARTY\u2019) and under its constant surveillance. The story takes place in Oceania which is a super state consisting of Great Britain, the Americas, Australia and many more countries, all under the control of the Party. The main character Winston Smith feels the need to rebel against the Party by writing his thoughts in a book, which is a \u2018thought crime\u2019 and by being in a forbidden relationship with a woman named Julia.<\/p>\n
One compelling aspect of the novel is how \u2018crime\u2019 and thus, \u2018law\u2019 are perceived. First, law does not exist at all in\u00a0totalitarian\u00a0Oceania. Nothing can be illegal as laws do not exist anymore. Yet, if Winston is caught writing his thoughts down in his diary, he could be executed or given 25 years of forced labour. The Thought Police has unlimited power to enforce the Party\u2019s views and ideologies\u00a0and if anything goes against these ideologies or is not in line with the Party\u2019s views, they are classed as illegal.<\/p>\n
Now,\u00a0this makes us question the\u00a0popular belief that law always has a single and\u00a0coherent\u00a0body. For this, I draw upon the question raised in the LW927 Law and Humanities module at the University of Kent of whether \u201cthe idea of a coherent body for law still work towards the delivery of justice\u201d. Some might find it hard to relate this question to Orwell\u2019s novel but the key to this lies in the interpretation of the text.<\/p>\n
Dystopia\u00a0is often the product of a fear for the\u00a0future following actual or past events and to be able to warn people effectively, the scenarios depicted are often the worst possible ones.\u00a0So,\u00a0every aspect described in the text is\u00a0quite extreme\u00a0but is\u00a0a fair representation of what is really going on in the actual world.\u00a0Firstly, the fact that \u2018no laws\u2019 exist\u00a0is\u00a0an\u00a0absurd idea; the \u2018coherence\u2019 factor\u00a0in \u2018coherent body\u2019\u00a0is\u00a0hence, already\u00a0thrown out of the water. However, despite this claim, Winston can still be punished if he commits thought crime and eventually the premise that there is no legal body or system is trumped by the fact that there are some things considered \u2018illegal\u2019. So, law whether written or unwritten, coherent or not, does exist in Oceania\u00a0and has existed in any other totalitarian regimes in the past(or present even?) in the real world. The people are still being regulated and oppressed by a certain set of beliefs, ideologies and even \u2018rules’. The story goes further as the Party tries to control the population\u2019s behaviour by inventing \u2018Newspeak\u2019 a\u00a0new language where the main tactic is to limit words to restrict independent thoughts and this \u2018dumbing down\u2019 will make disobedience\u00a0unthinkable\u00a0and the\u00a0State (the Party) will\u00a0have absolute power. Is this kind of regulation there to deliver\u00a0justice?\u00a0It is very much unlikely.<\/p>\n
So, if we take the dystopian and totalitarian factors out of the picture for a moment, we realise that law\u00a0is always based on a \u2018body\u2019 that gives it its power and authority. Whether that body is coherent or ethical, is a completely different question. Wherever this power derives its legitimacy and whether it is morally acceptable, is also a different question.At the end of the day,can this absolute power of the Party in\u00a0Orwell\u2019s\u00a0Oceania be\u00a0considered as a metaphor to the facts of the famous\u00a0MABO<\/i><\/b>\u00a0case?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Orwell\u2019s dystopian novel imagines the \u2018worst of all possible worlds\u2019, where all the social, political and religious institutions have broken down as a result of never-ending war, leaving the population oppressed by the \u2018government\u2019\u00a0(the \u2018PARTY\u2019) and under its constant surveillance. The story takes place in Oceania which is a super state consisting of Great Britain, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57834,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[136347],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/lawandthehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/lawandthehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/lawandthehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/lawandthehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57834"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/lawandthehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/lawandthehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":426,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/lawandthehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions\/426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/lawandthehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/lawandthehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/lawandthehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}