Case Study

To begin this chapter on law and the rule (or otherwise) of law in early Australia, it is as well to revisit the key points discussed thus far. Scapegoating – discussed in Chapter 2 – as a quintessential example of injustice led us to consider the law in general and Western law in particular as a possible antidote to scapegoating – a position, as we saw, that René Girard refers to in his seminal work, Violence and the Sacred , when he claims that ‘judicial institutions’ prevent scapegoating. The question arose, however, as to whether law as such can be the antidote that Girard implies that it is when scapegoating is at issue. Clearly, there have been laws (c.f. the Nuremberg laws) that have reinforced scapegoating – unjust laws, in short. Could there be a way through to laws that would be the embodiment of justice – or is this simply a pipe dream?