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There is, but the trend in US (and UK) law has unfortunately gone down a path that makes this very difficult. The letter of the law is given great weight, no ma

There is, but the trend in US (and UK) law has unfortunately gone down a path that makes this very difficult. The letter of the law is given great weight, no matter the intention of the law. For example, in tax law, the game is to find ways to not actually violate the exact letter of the law. The idea of the spirit of the law has no force; everything has to be precisely outlawed. This, of course, is an infinite game that will never end, and leads to the endless games of shell companies and foreign domiciling and so on and so on; everyone knows that this is not what was intended, but it's what we have. The alternative is to write into law the intentions of the law, and allow subsequent assessment and judgement. Some places do this, and in this way the game of finding ways to ever so slightly dodge the exact wording of the law is a much less fruitful game.

dexen 8y ago
>The letter of the law is given great weight, no matter the intention of the law. You are assigning the responsibility the wrong way around. The letter, and the intent, of the law have two points of interfacing: the point of execution (interpretation by the taxpayers or by the courts of law), and the point of redaction (the lawmakers distilling the intent into actual letter of the law). In case of the letter of the law not representing the intent, we would be much better off assigning the blame to the lawmakers. It is both their primary duty, and also what they have the best tools for. Putting the onus on anybody else than the lawmakers creates perverse incentive to get bribed for sake of writing loopholes into the law. When the lawmakers fail at properly writing the laws, punish the lawmakers: both vote them out, and also have the media launch investigation into possible corruption - the slip-up could very well be intentional.

dexen 8y ago

>The letter of the law is given great weight, no matter the intention of the law. You are assigning the responsibility the wrong way around. The letter, and the intent, of the law have two points of interfacing: the point of execution (interpretation by the taxpayers or by the courts of law), and the point of redaction (the lawmakers distilling the intent into actual letter of the law). In case of the letter of the law not representing the intent, we would be much better off assigning the blame to the lawmakers. It is both their primary duty, and also what they have the best tools for. Putting the onus on anybody else than the lawmakers creates perverse incentive to get bribed for sake of writing loopholes into the law. When the lawmakers fail at properly writing the laws, punish the lawmakers: both vote them out, and also have the media launch investigation into possible corruption - the slip-up could very well be intentional.