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Please be prepared to outline the arguments for and against conviction of the "grudge informer".
Do you accept Hart's "solution" of a "retrospective law" to cover the facts of this case? Did you agree with the defendants in the Nuremberg case that ex post facto laws were inherently unjust?
Do you agree that if Hart's theory requires an ex post facto law to do what is just, then that proves there is something wrong with it? What about the critique that the ex post facto law criminalizes an act for which there was (at the time it was committed anyway) no "internal aspect"?
Is the Realist solution any better than Hart's? "How can we distinguish between informing on an unwanted spouse and purchasing a home in the United States?" (What if a future regime sees ownership of real property as a sign of criminal degeneracy?)
Do you agree that Hart's positivism and the theory of legal realism ... share a
failing: they are ultimately tied to the idea of "law" as emanating from particular human biengs.
For Austin, law was the command of a determinate soverign. For Hart, law is the emanation of a
regime that has physical power within a territory and is accpeted by the people.
Is there an alternative?
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