Law as Medical Treatment
In my last article I covered the difference between new law and old law, for example, nature, called the law merchant by some, which is universal law for the whole world. In this article, I explore the view that law is a species of medical treatment. There is good historical precedent for this, for example, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics calls “correction” or “punishment” a sort of medicine (1104b15).
We also find the idea that statutes introductory of new law are a sort of medince, in that in interpretating such statutes, the first thing to determine is
What remedy the Parliament hath resolved and appointed to cure the disease of the commonwealth. (Heydon's Case [1584] EWHC Exch J36 (01 January 1584)
Statutes are, therefore, to “cure the disease of the commonwealth,” and, therefore, are a sort of medical treatment. Further on in the same case,
“the office of all the Judges is always to make such construction as shall suppress the mischief, and advance the remedy, and to suppress subtle inventions and evasions for continuance of the mischief, and pro privato commodo, and to add force and life to the cure and remedy, according to the true intent of the makers of the Act, pro bono publico” (ibid.)
Of courses, this does not mean that all law in general is not a sort of medical treatment, from one perspective; on the other hand, we could look at the natural law as a sort of natural operation of a healthy body, and positive law as a sort of medicine for unhealthy bodies that do not obey the natural law. But whatever perspective we adopt, it is clear that imposition of new law is medical treatment, and experimental medical treatment at that.
In this sense, one might refer to Parliaments, Courts and so on and so forth as Army Hospitals, in which their particular medical treatments are applied to individuals. In the era of COVID, it becomes clear why coercing people into accepting medical treatment is important: all law is medical treatment, and if people have a right to deny consent, then the whole statutory system could collapse. All of the homeless University graduates who use taxpayer money to buy degrees could find themselves in a very bad way.