You can, actually, make a circumstance illegal. The vast majority of regulation explicitly make circumstances illegal.

"That ladder just happened to be placed there". "The forklift happened to be parked that way". "The room happened to have too many people in it". "The fire extinguisher happened to be expired and failed to fire" -- all illegal circumstances (in various parts of the US, based on Federal/State/Local regulations)

"They needed to sue, but couldn't get a lawyer" is absolutely a circumstance we could make illegal. Making a circumstance illegal doesn't mean it will never happen, of course, but it does mean there can be immediate repercussions and fixes for it if/when it does.

You can make actions illegal, and you can make not taking an action illegal, but you can't make not having enough money illegal, because "having money" is not an action that you can mandate people take.

> "They needed to sue, but couldn't get a lawyer" is absolutely a circumstance we could make illegal.

I mean -- I guess, technically you can, but it's one of the most insulting things I have ever heard. What are you gonna do, sue them for not having the money to have a lawyer to defend themselves? Maybe take them to court for damages, caused by them not having money? Kafka would have a field day with this.

You seem to be interpreting it the opposite of how I interpreted it.

You wouldn't take action against the person without money. You'd do something to fix the situation, like provide them with a lawyer for free.

Note I don't necessarily think that's a good idea (really haven't thought it through), but that's how I interpreted th comment.

Right, I agree that's probably how it's meant, but that's not accurately described by the phrase "making it illegal".

If I make houses without a sewer line illegal, that doesn't mean the state has to lay a sewer line, it means you the owner have to take care that you get a sewer line or you open yourself up to liability.

They made not having medical insurance illegal. Quite controversial, at the time.

Yes, you can. You can make it illegal for the accused to lack representation in court if they desire it, you can make it illegal for a person to walk the street without a certain minimum amount of money in their pocket, you can make it illegal for a person under age X to not be at school at a particular part of the day without a reasonable excuse, etc. It's been done. You can even always define an occurrence as an act e.g. access to justice cannot be denied, or a shed cannot be permitted to remain purple.

Maybe you mean that making a circumstance illegal doesn't necessarily prevent a circumstance from occurring?

No I'm saying the notion of illegality does not apply, and in fact leads to absurd consequences.

For instance, if you make it illegal for the accused to lack representation in court, you can then sue them for not having representation, a suit from which they cannot defend themselves, lacking representation, which then opens them up to another suit, ad infinitum!

I think there's some conflation of "regulating" and "making illegal" going on here. Mandating that the state must provide everyone with a public defender is not equivalent to "making lacking representation illegal".

You get to choose who you apply laws to when you write them. If I make it illegal for a court to proceed if they do not provide representation to a defendant who desires it, I don't have to arrest the defendant.

Yeah but then you haven't made not having representation illegal, you've made not providing representation illegal.

But you can put down legal protections to prevent this circumstance occurring. It is just like not having access to medical care because you are poor. We put protections to prevent this happening, called public health insurance.

For the sister comment: I wonder why companies are not entitled to a public defender, interesting.

But everybody should be equally able to defend themselves, or sue before a court of law, which is clearly not the case today in UK and most countries on the planet. The legislator has created complex laws that only benefit people with a lot of money thus lawyers. Which means that citizens do not have equal rights in a court of law and can't get a fair trial.

It's just like tax avoidance. It's expensive to set up but ultimately it results in rich people paying LESS taxes/wealth than poor people for those who can afford it.