4 ms·

A yearly review of all of the laws would be labour intensive (read expensive). Governments will simply say "reviewing all the laws means we have to raise taxes

by kardos 7y ago

A yearly review of all of the laws would be labour intensive (read expensive). Governments will simply say "reviewing all the laws means we have to raise taxes to pay for the review, so instead we're going to do a blanket refresh on all laws"

mLuby 7y ago
Fair point. A blanket renewal is nearly as pointless as no auto-expiration. There is a solution though: write fewer laws. Ideally so few that citizens can reasonably be expected to know them, or at least so they can be counted. I wonder if a society can function with a max of 1000 laws at any one time?
- Mirioron 7y ago
  Teach law in school. Require students to understand law, because they are citizens that have to follow those laws. If kids can't do it well, then the laws would need to be changed.
TallGuyShort 7y ago
One of the problems right now is the sheer size of some laws that get passed a matter of hours after their final draft is released, with no good way that I know of for people to diff the various versions and catch things. Already no one's reading all the laws.
- Sir_Substance 7y ago
  That's a separate issue. This isn't even really a matter of law, it should be a matter of simple parliamentary procedure that laws will not be considered unless their draft has been available unedited for three months, unless there is a unanimous vote to have them be considered early.
Sir_Substance 7y ago
I'm envisioning the average sunset clause being more like 20 years. The annual refresh would be "lets make sure this doesn't expire" done voluntarily for the things that are really important that are currently going to expire in 19 years but everyone wants to reset their timer every year just in case. I also don't really think it's that big a deal to ask the government to once a year go "we all still think rape's pretty uncool? yep? great, all in favor of amending the Consolidated Sexual Offenses Act 2019's expiry to be 2038, up from 2037? Done! Moving on." I imagine any politician that objected would get eviscerated in the public eye. Should be a one-hour-a-year process to knock out all the key stuff, particularly if everyone knows first sitting session of the year is the refresh-the-core-values session.
- kardos 7y ago
  That doesn't sound like a review, it sounds like busy work

by kardos 7y ago

mLuby 7y ago

Fair point. A blanket renewal is nearly as pointless as no auto-expiration. There is a solution though: write fewer laws. Ideally so few that citizens can reasonably be expected to know them, or at least so they can be counted. I wonder if a society can function with a max of 1000 laws at any one time?

Mirioron 7y ago
Teach law in school. Require students to understand law, because they are citizens that have to follow those laws. If kids can't do it well, then the laws would need to be changed.

TallGuyShort 7y ago

One of the problems right now is the sheer size of some laws that get passed a matter of hours after their final draft is released, with no good way that I know of for people to diff the various versions and catch things. Already no one's reading all the laws.

Sir_Substance 7y ago
That's a separate issue. This isn't even really a matter of law, it should be a matter of simple parliamentary procedure that laws will not be considered unless their draft has been available unedited for three months, unless there is a unanimous vote to have them be considered early.

Sir_Substance 7y ago

I'm envisioning the average sunset clause being more like 20 years. The annual refresh would be "lets make sure this doesn't expire" done voluntarily for the things that are really important that are currently going to expire in 19 years but everyone wants to reset their timer every year just in case. I also don't really think it's that big a deal to ask the government to once a year go "we all still think rape's pretty uncool? yep? great, all in favor of amending the Consolidated Sexual Offenses Act 2019's expiry to be 2038, up from 2037? Done! Moving on." I imagine any politician that objected would get eviscerated in the public eye. Should be a one-hour-a-year process to knock out all the key stuff, particularly if everyone knows first sitting session of the year is the refresh-the-core-values session.

kardos 7y ago
That doesn't sound like a review, it sounds like busy work