section_path: Theories/Equality before the law
section_name: Equality before the law
paragraph_text: Equality before the law
  
  Law raises important and complex issues about equality, fairness, and justice. There is an old saying that ' All are equal before the law '. The belief in equality before the law is called legal egalitarianism. In criticism of this belief, the author Anatole France said in 1894, "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread." With this saying, France illustrated the fundamental shortcoming of a theory of legal equality that remains blind to social inequality; the same law applied to all may have disproportionately harmful effects on the least powerful.