ubiquitin,
Avram, im sorry Im not sure what we are disagreeing about.
An outline of how I perceived our conversation.
1. In your OP, you implied that to subsume one’s opinion in favor of an authority’s was wrong. This might not be an accurate interpretation of your position – see below.
2. I replied that, in matters of Jewish law, sometimes this can be a virtue.
3. You seemed to disagree with that, and argued that such cases were rare. Thus Jewish law encourages disagreement with judges/beis din/rabbis if you feel your interpretation of the law is better.
4. I replied again, stating my opinion that it was the cases where disagreement with judges/beis din/rabbis is good are rare.
5. You responded to this with examples that would be very rare in Orthodox society, which I feel does not contradict my response in number 4.
In Yisdishkeit if you know that a Rav is making a mistake it is assur to follow his wrong psak (see maseches Horiyos).
This might be why there is confusion as to what the disagreement is. When you said – For example they asked a lawyer in my group,” if you disagreed with a judge’s interpretation of the law would you put aside your own interpretation?” The lawyer said yes – I didn’t see this as a case where the judge was fundamentally wrong because he didn’t have all of the facts/was biased/was stupid, etc. But a case where there are two valid arguments and the judge and lawyer take opposite sides of the issue.
Lehavdil, In the legal system if a law is wrong or you believe a judge is interpreting it incorrectly I maintain you shouldnt follow.
As you stated, a “wrong” law wouldn’t exist within halacha. As far as interpret incorrectly; that word didn’t appear in the judge’s question to the lawyer. What would your response be if “incorrect” were replaced with “different”?