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A comment on Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules. Parent comment

Re:Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court... by pessimizer on Friday February 19, 2021 @07:55AM (#26192610)
Yes, you can. You can make it illegal for the accused to lack representation in court if they desire it, you can make it illegal for a person to walk the street without a certain minimum amount of money in their pocket, you can make it illegal for a person under age X to not be at school at a particular part of the day without a reasonable excuse, etc. It's been done. You can even always define an occurrence as an act e.g. access to justice cannot be denied, or a shed cannot be permitted to remain purple.

Maybe you mean that making a circumstance illegal doesn't necessarily prevent a circumstance from occurring?

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Re:Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court... by FeepingCreature on Friday February 19, 2021 @09:28AM (#26193487)
No I'm saying the notion of illegality does not apply, and in fact leads to absurd consequences.

For instance, if you make it illegal for the accused to lack representation in court, you can then sue them for not having representation, a suit from which they cannot defend themselves, lacking representation, which then opens them up to another suit, ad infinitum!

I think there's some conflation of "regulating" and "making illegal" going on here. Mandating that the state must provide everyone with a public defender is not equivalent to "making lacking representation illegal".

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Re:Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court... by pessimizer on Friday February 19, 2021 @10:45AM (#26194330)
You get to choose who you apply laws to when you write them. If I make it illegal for a court to proceed if they do not provide representation to a defendant who desires it, I don't have to arrest the defendant.
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Re:Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court... by FeepingCreature on Saturday February 20, 2021 @03:37AM (#26202638)
Yeah but then you haven't made not having representation illegal, you've made not providing representation illegal.
[ Parent | on HN ]