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Comment by chii | Hacker News Reader

> No one suggested the court/process itself was dodgy/unfair.

for civil disputes, i am sure they are.

For disputes between the gov't and you, i highly doubt it. Is there a single instance of the gov't being sued for a policy that was meant to be political in nature affecting the supplicant?

Even someone like jack ma is unable to use the courts to obtain any justice - his Ant Financials IPO was shut down for political reasons, and he was reeducated. There's no such thing as due process in china.

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This is such a myopic comment to me.

Name me a single country where a rich person goes against the government and wins? You just don’t see it happen much in the US because the government is run by rich capitalists, but pretty much every country is the same.

Private companies have won against governments in ISDS courts:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/06/isds-fea...

I would say that’s an extension of the idea that rich people run the US government, which runs global organizations such as the world bank, which runs these ISDS courts.

China is just big enough to be able to ignore these global orgs.

Now try to win a case against the interests or connections of a high ranking official in China.

"Law and order" is not equal to "the rule of law". Both China and the US ascribe to the idea of "might makes right", which is in essence an organized form of lawless state. It is conceptually the same as in criminal gangs, only with vastly better optics. That is why anyone not in power should strive for a rules-based order, for their own best interest at least.

I think we’re saying the same thing here? Yes I agree, both superpowers are very similar.

China is an authoritarian regime. The US is a kleptocracy flirting with autocracy.

Neither place the rights of their citizens in much regard, though money definitely helps in both places.

The possible outcomes for individuals in China though are Orwellian.

Not sure why you think China is Orwellian and the US isn’t when ICE is literally kidnapping people off the streets. Wake up mate, the Orwellian is coming from inside the house.

Feel free to learn.

https://www.nzz.ch/english/why-george-orwells-1984-is-so-pop...

China has been disappearing people for dissent for decades. Whether Trump is the start of a similar regime, I guess we'll have to wait and see...

You can wait and see, or you can open the window and look outside. I know what I already saw.

You make a lot of assumptions.

Like that I'm American, or not Chinese. Or that you giving your 50 cents isn't transparent.

It happens all the time here. Wealth isn't even a precondition, but indeed, one needs time and/or money. It helps being organized with other people to share the burden. Over here we have also got the ombudsman.

It is a matter of degrees. The harder it is for a poor individual to be done justice against the government, the weaker the rule of law. On a tangent, parties that play the horn about "law and order" usually mean "rules for thee but not for me".

Not sure where here is for you. But anyway, even if you can win a battle you can’t win a war. If a government wants to do something, it will regardless of how any individual person, rich or not, feels about it.

It just so happens that most western “democracies” are run by rich people, so they can avoid all that unpleasant business by just running the government in the first place.

European governments regularly lose cases brought by individuals in both domestic and European courts; below are some well-known examples across different countries and legal issues.

E.g.

Broniowski v. Poland (ECtHR, 2004)

Doğan and Others v. Turkey (ECtHR, 2004)

Hirst v. United Kingdom (No. 2) (ECtHR, 2005)

Scoppola v. Italy (No. 3) (ECtHR, 2012)

KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland (ECtHR, 2024)

These judgments show that individuals and civil society groups can hold European states accountable for violations involving property, voting, asylum, climate, and broader rule‑of‑law issues.

They often lead to legislative change, financial compensation, or policy reversal, and many are used as precedent by lawyers and activists in new cases across Europe.

I’m not a lawyer, and many of these cases are not famous enough to be reported on in a format easily understandable to a layperson. I’m also not going to read through case resolutions to respond to a hacker news comment. I did take a cursory look at the examples you wrote though.

I will admit that my original statement lacks nuance, which makes it easy to nitpick.

Having read some of your cases though, a pattern emerged: it’s usually supra national organizations adjudicating these cases, and the nations are not bound by the rulings.

For example, in Hirst vs UK it was ruled that it’s a violation of human rights to deny prisoners the vote, and yet the UK government deliberately ignored that ruling and as a result prisoners still can’t vote in the UK. Not to mention that when this case was brought up in a UK court it was dismissed.

Hirst v United Kingdom (No 2) (2005) ECHR 681 is a European Court of Human Rights case, where the court ruled that a blanket ban on British prisoners exercising the right to vote is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. The court did not state that all prisoners should be given voting rights. Rather, it held that if the franchise was to be removed, then the measure needed to be compatible with Article 3 of the First Protocol, thus putting the onus upon the UK to justify its departure from the principle of universal suffrage.

There are numerous examples of citizens winning court cases against the government.

Take the just the uk, three examples:

Anti‑protest regulations (Liberty v Home Secretary)

Air pollution litigation (ClientEarth v UK Government)

Rwanda asylum plan (AAA & Others v Secretary of State

Windrush - Members of the Windrush have repeatedly challenged the Home Office over wrongful detention, removal, and denial of rights, leading to government admissions of unlawfulness and an official apology in 2018.

Your claim is false. The world is not the same the world over, civil liberties are better in some places than in others.

Sure, and after all these cases what happened?

Prisoners still can’t vote, people are getting arrested for peacefully protesting holding signs, and the Rwanda ruling was overruled by parliament and the only reason the plan was stopped is because the PM changed.

'Prisoners still can’t vote' - you don't appear to be able to read.

People have been arrested for peacefully holding signs, but they haven't just permanently disappeared.

I'm bored. The grey has shades, only children see in black and white.

Read up on the cases you posted. The UK deliberately ignored the EU ruling. You probably know how to read but research might not be your forte.

I think Durov recently went against France and won, and that's in the midst of Cold War II.

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