“Whoever prepares an aggressive war shall be punished by imprisonment for twelve to twenty years, or by an exceptional sentence.”
Some cite this paragraph from the Czech criminal code today, in connection with a public fundraiser for weapons intended to bomb Moscow. They imagine, naively, that all it takes is to file a properly written legal complaint.
Not so. In reality, that paragraph does not exist—even though it is printed in the official collection of laws.
For a law to truly exist, three conditions must be met:
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Someone must be willing to enforce it.
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That someone must have enough power to do so.
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It must be commonly known, so that everyone can take it into account and adjust their behavior accordingly.
If these conditions are not fulfilled, the law is effectively repealed. Whether it remains written in some code or register is entirely irrelevant.
Conversely, the unwritten paragraph—“Whoever insults the Prophet Muhammad shall be punished by death”—is, in much of Western Europe, part of the actual legal order.
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There are those determined to enforce it.
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They possess the strength and means to do so.
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Everyone knows this, and behaves accordingly.
Some may object that such reasoning makes it hard to know which laws are really in force at any given moment. But it isn’t hard at all. In most situations, the overwhelming majority of people have no difficulty discerning which rules actually matter.