Sadly, drafting a law means nothing on its own. You need power to enforce it. It gets enforced easily on the "powerless" common people. But that changes when the government has to contend with "powerfull" and influential people.

You said it in your story:

beacsue his fellow poor masses handed him over to them.

When the "masses" stop hating eachother and realize their power. Those things would stop happening, and there would be no impunity to anyone.