Ilse’s Reviews > Tomas Nevinson > Status Update
Ilse
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What sense does it make that after 19 years & 11 months have elapsed a crime can still merit the severest of sentences,but not 30 days later?Does time convert sth that existed into sth that didn’t?Justice is absurd,a fantasy,impossible.We act as if justice existed &we happily dish it out when there can be no justice.Accepting its meaningless rules is another matter,we have to do something to keep up appearances.
— May 26, 2026 04:09AM
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Jan-Maat
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May 26, 2026 06:42AM
In English murder law there was u til about thirty years ago, maybe a principle rather than a law of a year and a day - if you injured somebody, say in a fight, and they died within a year and a day, you could be charged and tried for their murder. Which isn't his point, but your quote reminded me of it.
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The year plus one day princople is interesting, as well as fixing the duration in which an effect is attributed to the act - isn't one year a bit short? In Belgian law, for criminal prosecution, in case of unintentional killing, the term of prescription (five years) only starts the moment the victim is dead - and the term for possible prosecution since the facts, in case of dead of the victim later, is twenty years. The year + one day likely comes from the start of the counting: often the day after the term starts (fact or event on 1January, term passed 2 January Y2? On the quote: I hadn't expected to be immersed in some legal philosophy with this novel - and with its reflections on the non-applicability of prescription to war (and other) crimes, it seems to point at the next book I hope reading, Philippe Sands' East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity".
Ilse wrote: "The year plus one day princople is interesting, as well as fixing the duration in which an effect is attributed to the act - isn't one year a bit short? In Belgian law, for criminal prosecution, in..."Legal philosophy in a novel, oh the places that a law degree can take you!
It made me aware how a gifted novelist can turn even dry material like legal theory into an absorbing story ;) - while I associate prescription generally with a headache, because of the complexity of the figure, Marias rekindled a wish to return to reading on legal theory - a subject I shunned for years.
Ilse wrote: "It made me aware how a gifted novelist can turn even dry material like legal theory into an absorbing story ;) - while I associate prescription generally with a headache, because of the complexity ..."Wow! Where else can Marais take you? Power from beyond the grave indeed.