Ever heard of it?

What I particularly love about my job is learning from each other. I had such an opportunity.
A customer called me because we had to clarify a bureaucratic matter, and in this context the term “Useful illegality” came up.

Ingenious and so apt, I thought. I had never heard of it before and immediately did a bit of research. And lo and behold – there’s a lot about it on the net.

In a world characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, familiar structures and legal orders are being shaken. In the midst of this dynamic, a term that seems paradoxical at first glance is gaining in importance: useful illegality. This refers to the deliberate toleration or utilisation of rule violations if they appear necessary in order to remain capable of acting.

If we ask the AI for examples, we come up with one that is relevant to the informal labour market: people without secure residence status work in care, on construction sites or in agriculture – often without contracts, insurance or legal protection. Despite clear legal prohibitions, this practice is tacitly accepted in many places because it is economically functional. Breaking the rules becomes a prerequisite for maintaining certain social processes.

Such phenomena are particularly evident under VUCA conditions. In the midst of unpredictability and rapid change, many actors resort to improvised, often legally uncovered solutions. At the edges of the legal framework, a space is created for pragmatic action, which often proves necessary.

But let’s look at the fundamental questions that this raises:

• How resilient is a legal system that is applied selectively?
• Who decides when an offence is considered “acceptable”?
• And in whose interest are violations of norms overlooked?

This creates a field of tension that, especially in a time of accelerated change, promotes the acceptance of informal practices and, at worst, cements existing inequalities – for example, when economically useful illegality is tolerated while other offences are consistently prosecuted.

Customised illegality is therefore far more than a mere exception to the law.
It reveals the extent to which social practice and the legal order can diverge – and invites us to critically scrutinise existing power relations and examine their practicality and, above all, their unifying values.

In a VUCA world, it becomes a mirror of a society that balances between normative aspirations and functional realism.