VOLUME V, CHAPTER 7
How the Law Treats an Ordinary Person
Part Three comes back to the most concrete place, the law landing on one living, ordinary person, and the three most basic things there, proof, guilt, and the friction between a dead law and a live person. The first two parts said what the law is and how the law runs, both still reasoning up in the air. This part walks close beside an ordinary person's actual circumstances.
The first section is the direction of proof. When a person stands before power, does he first have to prove he did no wrong, or does the other side first have to prove he did. One line of difference, one kind of person living under pressure, another living under protection. The Chinese world set the direction three thousand years ago on when guilt is in doubt, lean light. This is the twentieth layer.
The second section digs into those words. Leaning light when guilt is in doubt assumes guilt and innocence were clear to begin with, but dig deeper and guilt itself is a position, and a good judge is simply a person able to trade places, to stand in more than one position at once. This is the twenty-first layer.
The third section returns to the saying the law is dead and a person is alive. The friction between a dead law and a live person has its root not in the law itself but in output falling short. This is the twenty-second layer.
These three sections build from the twentieth layer to the twenty-second, and feel out the base of how the law treats an ordinary person, from proof to conviction, all the way down to output, the root under everything. The stance has not shifted. It lays out the positions and leaves the judgment to you.
Contents
Section One. The Direction of Proof, the Most Basic Line in How the Law Treats an Ordinary Person.
Section Two. Lean Light When Guilt Is in Doubt. Four Words from Three Thousand Years Ago, and a Layer Deeper Than Them.
Section Three. The Law Is Dead and a Person Is Alive. The Real Position of the Law.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.