ABSTRACT

When therefore we say of A and B that they are legal persons, we have not said enough to distinguish what rights and duties they have, and consequently the respects in which they are unequal. If this is all we are to understand by 'equality of legal capacity', or 'equality before the law', it cannot be a criterion for evaluating legal systems, or an ideal to be realized, simply because it is necessarily entailed in calling anything 'a legal system'. At best it is the legal equivalent of the principle of impartiality, or equal consideration. It is tantamount to saying that there can be no legal basis for a decision until the legal status of the parties to a dispute has been investigated. But this is a formal property of any legal system, not a substantive one by which good systems can be distinguished from bad.