Blackstone's Ratio

Should be at the centre of all liberal reasoning and jurisprudence, along with Habeas Corpus and the presumption of innocence, and yet I increasingly find that many people have a problem with the following concept:

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

I personally attribute this to an increasing turn to extremism and authoritarianism among the political left and political right, and the demonisation of liberalism and libertarianism. As the divide between the left and right, or our allies and enemies, harden, and people get increasingly more frustrated with the 'limits' of the Western democratic model which Europe and North America has abided by for a few centuries now, we are increasingly turning away from Western democratic values and looking towards China and Russia as social/political models (and just to be clear, I abhor xenophobia and the stigmatisation of foreign nations, but I have few qualms about critiquing the Chinese and Russian political models/cultures).

We must not reject a system that is flawed for a system that is inherently malign.