Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez, a fellow at the Comparative Constitutions project, spoke to an audience of about a dozen students in the Buffett Center Monday night. The event was put on by Political Union in the continuation of their weekly Monday debate series. Rodriguez’s talk delved into the issues presented by law maker’s willingness to manipulate the legal system to neutralize “enemies.” In addition to being the subject of the discussion, this is the premise of much of his research.
Rodriguez’s talk focused largely on different examples of how strictly the letter of the law has been applied in various historical situations, from Pussy Riot to Jesus Christ.
“They used that law to make what Pussy Riot had done equivalent to physical destruction of a religious building, and then they prosecuted based on that so they could go for a much higher sentence,” Rodriguez said of a controversial instance in which Pussy Riot was heavily persecuted for statements they made in a Russian Orthodox church. “The sentence for just being offensive would have basically been a fine.”
From these specific instances, Rodriguez went on to discuss broader issues of how international and U.S. laws are being applied today.
“We’re looking at how much our country is keeping to their own laws,” Rodriguez said. “There is a lot of weight put on how much governments are following their own laws.” Students jumped in to discuss historical issues such as the Armenian genocide to see how Rodriguez’s theories lined up with their own views on how laws have been applied over time.
Students grappled with the different case studies Rodriguez presented during the discussion that dominated the event.
“It’s really hard to decide who is right and who is wrong,” one student said during a lengthy discussion regarding the subject of ex-post facto law, and whether or not it is credible to utilize it.
Political Union chose to bring Rodriguez to campus because of his local status and because they believed he would foster a lively dialogue.
“My co-president Ben was the one who contacted him initially, he talked to him directly,” Connor Tatooles, WCAS junior and co-President of Political Union said. “He’d heard of a lot of the articles that he’d written in the press, saw him as a local figure who was approachable and thought the field he was studying was really interesting and also timely and that we would have very thought provoking discussions and that a lot of really good ideas would come out.”