Introduction
In the past decades, our society has undergone many transformations that have changed our lives in many ways. Such a direction of civilization and modernization has resulted in a complex law system that has been designed to protect our rights, and bring a sense of order in our daily activities. As a result, our system of law has evolved into such a complexity that it has become impossible for anyone to ingrain its details. Many people are now appreciating the fact that our law system has evolved into such a complexity that it is deviating from its core purpose. Philip Howard has presented some ideas on how our law system can be improved so to catalyze and enhance America’s competitiveness with the rest of the world.
Main Body
First, it is important for our society to judge our law system from a point view that evaluates the cumulative effect of our laws on the whole society instead of just focusing on individuals (Howard, 2011). With such a perspective, we can then determine whether our current system is working for the good of our education system, health system, and government system among other areas (Howard, 2011).
Currently, available data is indicating a continual erosion of the areas that I have mentioned above (Health, Education, and Government). For example, with a fear of drowning in lawsuits, many teachers have been unable to effectively control their classes (as a result of increasing indiscipline among students) (Ryan, 2010). With a significant amount of their time spent on trying to control their classes instead of teaching, our education standards have continued to deteriorate (Howard, 2011).
Secondly, we need to introduce the important element of trust in our legal system (Howard, 2011). Currently, many health professionals have been paralyzed by the fear of making mistakes while doing their work; hence preventing them from helping their patients in a better way. The same can be said about teachers, other professionals and any other individual that is haunted by the silent voice of our law system (in form of lawsuits) in everything he/she does. It would be appropriate to precisely design our law system so that it can provide a relative amount of freedom to professionals such as doctors with a focus on their intent and not just on the result of their actions (Ryan, 2010).
Besides, it would be fruitful to restructure our system of law so that people are well aware of the legal boundaries that they can operate in their normal lives (Howard, 2011). Such legal boundaries will need to create a framework of freedom for people to operate in (Howard, 2011). Currently, our legal boundaries and our freedoms are not apparent. To implement such a task, our laws need to be practical to unique circumstances and situations that are faced by people in their daily lives.
Finally, we cannot ignore the need to simplify our system of laws so as to develop a legal infrastructure that works (Howard, 2011). As it is currently the case, our law system is too detailed and deep that no one can claim to really understand it completely. It is obvious that our law system has grown to such a complexity as it is because we have focused too much on its documented aspect. Therefore, it would be helpful for us to give a significant room of operation to judges so that they can determine matters without referring too much to written laws (Howard, 2011).
Conclusion
Philip Howard has given useful ideas that can be used in the restructuring of our system of laws for the purposes of enhancing the competitiveness of our society in terms of education, health and other areas. One does not need a keen eye to see the fault in our legal system. Apart from failing to create a sensible culture that directs our consciousness to act right with a given degree of freedom and trust, our law has created fear. Besides, our law system has evolved into such a complexity that an element of unpredictability has encroached in it. With such a scenario in our midst, our society has been sliding backward in many areas of development and our moralities have degraded.
Reference List
Howard K. P. (2011). Four Ways to Fix a Legal System. Web.
Ryan H. (2010). Law Practices in the United States 43(3), 56-64.