Law should target only actions not status.

 Targeting people for prosecution based on an innate status rather than conduct is widely understood as a breach of the rule of law.

What the rule of law actually demands

At its core, the rule of law insists on a few stubborn principles:

1. Generality
   Laws apply to classes of actions, not classes of people.

2. Equality before the law
   The state prosecutes what you do, not what you are.

3. Predictability and neutrality
   Legal consequences must flow from publicly known rules, not identity-based discretion.

When prosecution is aimed at an innate characteristic of a living human being, race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, or other immutable traits, the law stops being a rule system and starts behaving like a sorting machine.

At that point, prosecution becomes ontological, not legal.

Status vs conduct is the bright line

Modern legal systems draw a hard boundary:

• Permissible: Prosecution for voluntary actions that violate a neutral law

• Impermissible: Prosecution for status, being, or membership as such

This distinction is not decorative. It’s foundational.

Courts often phrase it as:

“The law punishes acts, not identities.”

Once that flips, the law ceases to be law in the classical sense. It becomes an instrument of classification and enforcement rather than judgment.

Constitutional and human rights grounding

Across liberal constitutional systems and international human rights law, targeting based on innate status violates:

• Equal Protection principles

• Due Process

• Prohibitions on discrimination

• The idea of law as a generalizable rule

Historically, legal regimes that crossed this line are later described as rule by law, not rule of law. The same machinery, different soul.

A subtle but important caveat

Some laws reference status without targeting it for prosecution. For example:

• Age limits

• Citizenship requirements

• Disability accommodations

These regulate eligibility or protection, not criminal culpability. The moment the state uses innate status as the trigger for prosecution or punishment, the legal logic collapses inward.

The philosophical tell

A system governed by rule of law asks:

“What did you do?”

A system that has abandoned it asks:

“What are you?”

Once that question becomes legally operative, the courtroom turns into a mirror instead of a scale.