McGrath,

rereading this thread I still fail to see what you're dricing at except that you would have liked the judge to disregard the law in this particular case. From your first link and from other material I have now read about this case it seems to be extremely clear that the judge despite a lot of sympathy for the women had to follow the law. The law here needed no interpretation for it had been made after long deliberation to cover, among others, this case.

You have started by calling the judgement grotesque, whereas the judgement follows closely the very explicit law. Now you seem to blame the government for not interfering with the law (ace up the sleeve argument). In other situations, you'd be the first to blame the government for doing exactly that. Do I understand you correctly that you'd wish for the law to be broken when you agree with the result? I can't believe that for I'd rather believe you would wish for a correct judgement even in cases in which you'd wish for a different result.

The correct action, as you know, would be to change the law. And my impression is that your emotion in this case has prevented you from thinking about the consequences. Laws are not made for single cases and each change could have consequences soemwhere else.

I can understand your emotion in this particular case, but your argumentation rather reminds me of the Italian self ironic saying:
Piove....governo ladro (freely: it's raining....fucking government)

Wolfgang