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Holding the Law Hostage
Nov. 13th, 2009 03:16 pmFor your Friday WTF, if you thought your country had problems with its legal system, you don't have anything on Liberia, which may now be the most lawless country in the world. As in, it doesn't have any laws.
This is because, as Foreign Policy reports, Philip Banks, who has been head of the country's Justice department, has copyrighted them. Having served as head of the team who gathered and codified all laws passed in the twenty years of conflict following 1978 into a code in sync with the previous laws, Banks took the unusual step of copyrighting his work, claiming that the law of Liberia, or at least the physical version, is his intellectual property, and is refusing to let the government to which they pertain print any copies. Emails reveal that he and the team of lawyers who codified the property are willing to relinquish their copyright for a sum of money to pay their costs, somewhere between $150,000 and $360,000. The government of Liberia, at the moment, isn't paying (and may not even know if it's legal to pay). In the meantime, God only knows who's recording their current laws.
Regardless of whether he gets paid or not, Banks might want to make sure that there's a law in the set protecting him before he gives them up. Otherwise he may find his own book thrown at him.
This is because, as Foreign Policy reports, Philip Banks, who has been head of the country's Justice department, has copyrighted them. Having served as head of the team who gathered and codified all laws passed in the twenty years of conflict following 1978 into a code in sync with the previous laws, Banks took the unusual step of copyrighting his work, claiming that the law of Liberia, or at least the physical version, is his intellectual property, and is refusing to let the government to which they pertain print any copies. Emails reveal that he and the team of lawyers who codified the property are willing to relinquish their copyright for a sum of money to pay their costs, somewhere between $150,000 and $360,000. The government of Liberia, at the moment, isn't paying (and may not even know if it's legal to pay). In the meantime, God only knows who's recording their current laws.
Regardless of whether he gets paid or not, Banks might want to make sure that there's a law in the set protecting him before he gives them up. Otherwise he may find his own book thrown at him.
