Biases in the system

Few scholars would now challenge the proposition that the law, right through the spectrum, from criminal law through contract and consumer remedies to taxation, has a bias favouring the affluent and powerful. If most members of the public could fully realise just how loaded the average contract is their hair would stand on end.

For example, every time a member of the public enters a bus he is entering a contract which may well entirely exclude any responsibility by the bus company for injuries, no matter how badly the passenger is injured or how much that company is to blame.

Another example is a common standard form contract signed by many buyers of a popular new car. It binds the purchaser to buy the car at the price fixed by the company, to accept delivery at any time, and says that no matter what the salesman says his promises are to be ignored.

The company, on the other hand, is not bound to even produce a car, so long as the deposit is refunded.

The inequalities are often not a formal part of the legal rules but arise as a de facto result of the operation of these rules. Most important is the fact that legal advice, and particularly good legal advice, not to mention litigation, costs a lot of money. The affluent and the big companies obviously have more of that commodity.