If neighbours break whatever new Covid rules might soon emerge, it has been suggested that the Good Citizen might snitch on them to the authorities. Though not perhaps our cup of tea, it was certainly the ancient Greeks’. The Athenian lawgiver Solon (594 bc) was responsible.
In the absence of a police force or a state prosecutor, Solon put the responsibility for bringing criminals to justice into the hands of citizens. They brought their complaints before legal authorities who established procedures for bringing them to court.
This was all very well when litigants had been personally harmed, but it raised a problem when the state’s, rather than the individual’s, interests were concerned (e.g. accusations of treason). Who brought the case then? Solon resolved it by arguing that the best governed state was one in which those who were not wronged were as diligent in prosecuting criminals as those who had personally suffered.
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