I don't think moxie is suggesting that they are durable because of their origin, but something more along the lines of what you're saying. I think the point is that they aren't the sort of thing a modern democracy would come up with on its own, but they're very hard to get rid of once you've allowed them in.
(Not meaning to put words in anyone's mouth — just offering the thought the way my brain processed it.)
Maybe I've just been wholly indoctrinated, but I don't see how laws are the sort of thing that wouldn't have been created. From what I can tell, any group of humans stuck together for a time comes up with rules, and laws are simply the codification of these rules.
I think you can reasonably distinguish between having laws and having a criminal justice system as currently implemented. For example, you can have laws without having police officers or prosecutors or prisons. This is effectively what the civil court system does.
That does leave the question of what to do with those who commit the most serious crimes like rape and murder, but those are a small minority of the crimes currently prosecuted and are generally not the ones that best exemplify the failure of the existing justice system.
(Not meaning to put words in anyone's mouth — just offering the thought the way my brain processed it.)