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# The law protects the citizen, as far as the system allows
- URL: https://amemamem.com.br/en/the-law-protects-the-citizen-as-far-as-the-system-allows/
- Published: 2026-01-01T14:55:44.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-09T01:04:51.000Z
- Description: We call law justice as easily as we call having sex making love.
- Author: Airton Humber
- Tags: #en, #de-o-direito-protege-o-cidadao

We call law justice as easily as we call having sex making love.  
Words soften the experience, but they do not change the essence.

Recently I went through a situation that is simple to describe. I was the victim of a clear fraud. The bank was notified immediately, the protocols were followed, the procedures completed. Even so, the charge remained. I paid not out of agreement, but out of awareness of the system I am part of. I knew what would happen if I did not pay.

Exactly one year later, the law acknowledged the mistake. The amount was refunded, but not in full. I received about seventy percent of what I had paid. Part of the difference corresponded to the normal costs of the process itself. Formally, the conflict was closed.

During that same period, had I not paid, the debt would have become unpayable. With the interest provided for, the amount would have exceeded the original many times over. Not as deliberate punishment, but through the automatic functioning of the system. Paying was the only way to keep an acknowledged mistake from turning into a personal financial collapse.

The law fulfilled its function:  
it acknowledged the mistake, contained the abuse, determined the possible refund and closed the process.  
But something remained beyond the reach of calculation.

The time, the risk taken on, the emotional energy consumed, the cost of protecting myself from a system that keeps operating while the mistake is being discussed, none of this was considered. Not even the full refund of the amount paid. Not out of bad faith, but because the law does not act in that field. It regulates, organizes and stabilizes. It does not fully repair.

There is also a more subtle element at work: language. We call "legal process" what merely fulfills the form. We call "law" what is normative, even when it is not good. Legality, when it distances itself from ethics, stops protecting and merely organizes the damage.

Perhaps there lies one of the most discreet gears of the financial system: it can make serious mistakes, as long as the mistake is corrected within limits that do not threaten it. The real cost of the mistake does not disappear, it just does not fall on the one who holds the structure.

There is an old saying that the best business in the world is a well-run bank in Brazil, and the second best is a badly run bank in Brazil. This is not irony, but observation. The system is resilient. It absorbs failures without needing to change.

None of this makes the law illegitimate. It is necessary. Without it, the damage would be absolute. But perhaps it is honest to acknowledge its limits. The law protects the citizen, yes, but only as far as the system itself allows it to keep running intact.

Confusing this with justice is a linguistic comfort.  
And, like every poorly named comfort, it charges its price in silence.